Letting yourself become a victim

Over the last few months there has been very little in the way of progress in terms of real consumer protections - he who has the gold is timing the dribble of rules to ensure it doesn't seriously impede their control; most of what is going on is window dressing in preparation for the 2010 elections.

But I've finally reached a boiling point with messages from people who are literally letting themselves be abused by completely bogus debt collection schemes. If I had time to respond to them I'd need a staff.

Let me make this simple: You have no legal obligation to answer your phone. That seemingly all-powerful need to respond to the ringing of a phone is nothing more than a tool of predators.

What is it that drives people to need to not only answer the phone, but have an answering machine?

This isn't legal advice but I haven't found any case law that says an allegedly unanswered phone call has any legitimate bearing on the facts of a collection case. In fact, when no verbal exchange occurs between the alleged parties any allegedly recorded attempt at a call to you is meaningless. Any collection scammer can produce a supposedly computer-generated list of their system's alleged calls to phone numbers.

Given today's communication environment, the solution to NOT being harassed is available to anyone - don't answer the damn phone and don't have an answering machine. If you think you need to get calls from really important people set up a system where you only answer or respond within a minute or two to their calls - this isn't rocket science, folks.

In fact, to make it perfectly simple, connect a fax machine to the phone line. Or forward your primary phone (busy or no answer) to a fax machine somewhere - anywhere. Who cares where it goes? The predators are using machines to call you and when no human answers they will eventually move on.

Yes, if you owe a debt you owe it, but given the utterly specious and insidious nature of a huge percentage of alleged debts and the vultures that try to scam people into paying what they really don't owe, letting them put you in a position of being distressed via the phone is only preying on your long-held conditioned discomfort of letting the damn thing ring.

You don't have to be a slave to a noise.

Not to keep kicking a dog on the ground but . . .

Senator Dodd is putting up a well-crafted "talking points" smokescreen about his involvement in the Countrywide "Friends of Angelo" fiasco with the almost effective feint that he wouldn't jeopardize his long-standing service to his constituents with some kind of influence scandal. But he's following a dog that won't hunt. He's getting more bad advice.

And that's not the worst of it.

It's still nothing more than an elaborate feint; the real issue is how a Senator, especially a committee chair with the kind of power he wielded in financial legislation could be so utterly dense in regard to the millions of people (including his constituents) that were being abused by Countrywide over the years.

It's simply beyond belief that he wasn't aware of what Countrywide was doing to consumers; you'd have to be in a cave somewhere to not know what was happening. Thus, if he was actually ignorant, his staff should be summarily dismissed and he should resign for having kept them on the government payroll. If he wasn't ignorant, he's not only utterly incompetent to serve as a senator on a committee that deals with mortgage issues, he's nothing more than a criminal enabler (or worse) and he should resign.

Why his he still a Senator?

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

Senator Dodd is shocked - shocked I tell you!

One of the chief architects of the mortgage disaster has the chutzpa to feign surprise at the dismal results from the administration's much ballyhooed mortgage modification program.

"This is disgraceful," he said. "Why am I still reading about lost files, under-staffed and under-trained servicers, and hours spent on hold on the phone?"

If it weren't so blatantly disingenuous it might be funny as he attempts to ignore the history of predatory mortgage servicing.

Dodd wants us to believe the same people running predatory servicing operations are going to be able to change their modus operandi just because they've told him (wink, wink, nodd, nodd) that they'll modify bad loans to try and avoid foreclosures.

News flash for the Senator: The reason you're still reading about lost files, understaffed and under-trained servicers and hours spent on hold on the phone should be obvious to anyone other than the people who have supposedly been overseeing the financial services industry: They do what is in their best interests, nothing more.

Treasury's Herbert Allison said at Dodd's committee hearing that the servicers who are [allegedly] participating have extended 325,000 loan modification offers and have 160,000 three-month trial adjustments underway. Of course what isn't known (and wasn't asked) is how many of the alleged 325,000 offers were viable, let alone acceptable. Nor do we know if the 160,000 are part of the 325,000. And of course no mention is made of the servicers who aren't participating.

What Dodd and his little band of actors don't want to admit is that the program is nothing more than window dressing for one very big reason - if it doesn't make financial sense for them to offer a forbearance agreement (which is what these "modifications" really are) they won't, and they are the only ones who have a say in that process.

Dodd also doesn't want to admit that he and everyone else knows that the real purpose for most of these newly-named forbearance agreements is to indemnify the servicer from any potential liability for any actions they've taken or will take.

So, Senator Dodd - spare us the shocked act.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

Another collection Squaliforme gets a slap on the wrist

So much for enforcement having any effect.

Richard and Peter Pinto along with Charles Harris run something called "Oxford Management Services" which to their victims is known as "Oxford Collection Agency."

All collection Squaliformes need an attorney, and Salvatore Spinelli, Esq., was caught in the FTC's net along with Oxford. Spinelli allegedly can't pay his half of the $2.12M penalty so it was suspended. The Pintos and Harris allegedly can't pay their half either, so the FTC let them off by suspending all but $225,000.

And while the FTC will supposedly be keeping an eye on Oxford, the typical abuses by other collectors will go on - in part because of settlements like this.

The "new" FTC just put up the surrender flag.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

Is anybody sick of this yet?

Making homes affordable?

Just so no record of the absurdity gets disposed of, there’s a list of the squaliforme mortgage servicers who are getting money to allegedly modify loans – while they’re really doing little more than luring people into signing agreements that indemnify the servicer from ANY wrongdoing.

Here’s the breakdown of our tax dollars going to ensure these giant squaliformes can get away with covering their legal liabilities by allegedly modifying loans:

The amounts below are incentive payments for mortgage modifications as part of the administration's Making Home Affordable program.

B of A (Countrywide) $5.2 billion
Chase Home Finance $3.6 billion
Wells Fargo Bank, NA $2.4 billion
CitiMortgage $1.1 billion
GMAC Mortgage $1 billion
Bank of America, NA $804.4 million
Credit Suisse (Select Portfolio Servicing) $660.6 million
Morgan Stanley (Saxon Mortgage Servicing) $632 million
Ocwen Financial Corporation $553.4 million
Lehman Brothers (Aurora Loan Services) $459.6 million
Wilshire Credit Corporation $453.1 million
Home Loan Services, Inc. $447.3 million

So the administration would have us believe that these billions are actually keeping people in homes?

Sorry. Reality will eventually catch up to the media reporting. These alleged “modifications” are failing at disasterous levels.

Why? Because they're not really modifications. They're barely concealed forbearance agreements. The whole strategy is to conceal wrongdoing and indemnify the parties involved – and the government’s program is pouring BILLIONS of dollars into allowing predatory servicers to lure people into giving up their rights to sue the perpetrators of schemes.

Just another example of “change” you can believe in.

Nothing has changed except how more tax dollars are spread around to keep the right people in positions of power and influence.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

The new Government Motors product direction!

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

So you decide to buy a Goverment Motors vehicle ... "Doh!"

Hey - want to take a chance?

Looking for a real bargain?

How 'bout ol' Bean offers you a truck deal you can't refuse? How 'bout you run right down to your (for now) local GM dealer and get in on a steal of a deal. Hey - how can you go wrong if you're buying a vehicle from none other than the United States Government?

You know, the people in Washington who can't find their ass with both hands? Hey - take advantage of the situation before the next election. They'll never find you if you do it right - but there are some things you might want to check into when you walk into a GM dealer.

First, when was the last time you bought anything from the United States Government?

Chances are if you're the average consumer looking for a vehicle you've never bought anything from Uncle Sam. There are good reasons for this. Uncle Sam isn't accustomed to being paid based on what something is really worth. In fact, Uncle Sam will take $5.00 dollars one day and $5,000.00 the next for the very same thing. It all depends on - well, no one really knows what it depends on.

So when you walk in to what used to be a General Motors dealership and want one of the cars on the lot that seems to be what you're looking for, you're going to be faced with some things that no other car buyer in the history of United States commerce has had to deal with.

First, you used to be able to rely on the warranty terms and conditions that were specified in the proposed sales agreement. Well, sorry, those might not really apply because the government may not even have to honor contracts that they didn't offer you. See, there's this really creative gibberish that will eventually override your purchase contract because the United States is about to become the majority stockholder in General Motors and will, of course, control the Board of Directors and guess what - you can't sue the United States without their permission. Wanna gamble on who loses in that game?

And let's not forget how the innumerable state "lemon law" statutes will soon become meaningless. After all, a federally-owned company cannot be subject to state laws.

I hate to say it, but current GM dealers should kiss the marque goodbye. Anyone who spends a dime on advertising the sale of Government Motors vehicles is tossing good money after bad. Not to mention anyone who accepts a dime of advertising - which means the next step from the administration will be to subsidize advertising of their brand so the media keeps the scam going.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean