Illinois Sues Wells Fargo Over Mortgage Discrimination (predatory loan terms)

[Blue_Tires]

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit Friday against Wells Fargo & Co., alleging that one of the nation's top mortgage lenders illegally discriminated against minority borrowers.

In the suit, filed Friday in Cook County Circuit Court, Ms. Madigan alleged that Wells Fargo disproportionately sold African-American and Hispanic borrowers high-cost, subprime mortgages, while white borrowers with similar incomes received mortgages with more favorable terms.

Ms. Madigan alleged that Wells Fargo illegally conducted "reverse redlining," specifically targeting minority neighborhoods for abusive loans.

"I'm talking of the worst of the worst bad loans that were sold in the run-up to the collapse of the housing market," the attorney general said in a press conference Friday.

In a statement, Wells Fargo said race isn't a factor in its lending decisions and called the lawsuit a "complete mischaracterization" of its practices.

The suit cited data analyzed by the Chicago Reporter, a bimonthly magazine, that showed Wells Fargo in 2007 sold high-cost, subprime loans more often to its highest-income African-American borrowers in the Chicago area than to its lowest-income white borrowers. In that year, about 34% of African-American customers earning $120,000 or more received high-cost mortgages from the lender, compared with less than 22% of white borrowers who earned less than $40,000, according to the magazine.

Ms. Madigan said the lawsuit resulted from an investigation into possible violations of fair-lending and consumer-fraud laws. The suit seeks civil penalties against Wells Fargo and a court order ending the alleged illegal activities.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124906504187697487.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[Raineyb]

1. If I remember correctly Baltimore is already suing Wells Fargo for

the same practices. I hope more states and municipalities get on the bandwagon. (It would be nice if our federal government did something to prevent this from happening again which had been attempted but needless to say failed at the hands of the Republicans running things at the time.)

[Number23]

2. Wha'?? But "classism" is the new "racism!!one!"

:crazy:

I'm sure that Ill is just the tip of the iceburg. I wouldn't be surprised if the NAACP Legal Fund were to get involved shortly either, if they aren't already.

[Brewman_Jax]

3. If it quacks like a duck...

when the evidence is shown, still they argue. :grr: Like white flight, as long as white people didn't say they were moving to get away from black people, but they could say anything else. How white people got the idea that the worst thing they could be called was "racist", I'll never understand. They benefit from racist practices way more than anyone else, you'd think they own up to it. :P

Class, not race--bullshit, again.