Reply #8: chervilant, yes. I know. I've seen this stuff. It's awful. It's incriminating.

[JDPriestly]

And the Attorney General of the United States should be subpoenaing these documents in the context of criminal prosecutions. The mortgage lenders, in some cases, knew very well precisely what they were doing. I'm sure that is not the case in all of the foreclosures. Some of them were good loans that went bad as the economy collapsed.

But lots of the loans were awarded to borrowers based on lies that the mortgage company extracted from the borrower.

For example, in one case, let's say that a prospective borrower did not qualify for the loan because the borrower's income was not high enough. The mortgage company rep would suggest that the borrower get someone with some additional income to live on the property being mortgaged with the borrower. So, at the mortgage rep's suggestion, the borrower would ask a cousin or a friend or someone to sign some papers. Of course, the cousin, friend or whoever agrees (out of ignorance of the potential consequences). The mortgage rep knows full well that the cousin, friend, etc. will never actually live in the house and that the cousin, friend, etc.'s income will not help pay for the loan, but the loan is awarded anyway. And there were lots of things like that going on. In the example I am giving, the borrower would never have thought of asking someone else to pretend they would move in the house and live there, but the mortgage rep does not explain that the co-signer, co-payor in some instances really has to move into the house and contribute toward paying of the mortgage. That deal was presented as being just a formality. A friend of mine told me that the bank had asked her to get a friend to sign on her mortgage and then -- afterwards -- said as an aside, "Now your friend should move in with you." In that case, the house was big enough to accommodate my friend and her friend so my friend's friend really did move in. But generally in cases like this, the friend did not move in -- and the rest is history.

That is just one example in which mortgage company reps really encouraged what was in fact fraud. The mortgage company did not properly explain to customers why the second signature was needed and what it could mean for all involved.

Remember, that is just one example of what was going on.