I agree that the entire mortgage process needs to be demysitified, Edgar. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that it can happen - at least not easily and especially not as long as notes are being securitized. After living through the last six years about the absolute best advice I can give anyone mortgaging a property is a.) if the deal sounds too good, it probably is b.) resist any and all temptation to purchase more "house" than you can realistically afford and c.) if at all possible, hire an attorney to review your loan documents - preferably before you sign them but at the very least within the three day right of recission that every new mortgagor is allowed by law.

Yes, the current federal government has failed me - completely. And it will continue to fail consumers until consumers insist on being taken seriously and demand that individuals and corporations be held accountable for their actions. Settling complaints "without admitting wrongdoing" lets defendants off the hook completely. With no admission of wrongdoing any "settlement" figure is simply the cost of doing business. I'm most familiar with my own situation so I'll use that. Fairbanks "voluntarily" settled USA/Curry for $55 million - $40M of that going directly to the victims I believe. In exchange for that, Fairbanks was allowed to admit no wrongdoing in the case. Now, not a dime of that money came out of the corporate pockets. There are insurance policies in place to cover that. The worst thing that happened to Fairbanks is that the company had to get new letterhead when they changed the name to Select Portfolio Servicing in order to distance themselves from the negative publicity.

But my own situation is only a small part of the illustration. The bigger picture here is that a candidate that purports to want to eliminate predatory lending is financing her campaign with special interest money from many of the very entities that are perpetrating and/or enabling predatory lending and mortgage servicing fraud to begin with. As I mentioned, according to FEC filings Sen. Clinton has accepted PAC money from four of the entities in my case that have spent the last six years trying to literally steal my home. Unfortunatley, I'm still familiarizing myself with blog site code so I'm not sure how to post URLs yet but the list is easy enough to find at www.FEC.gov.  

My own legal situation notwithstanding, I feel that there is a point that absolutely needs to be made and I don't think I've seen it brought up by anyone yet. Many candidates accept PAC money to finance their campaigns. That's all fine, well and good. But, at least to me, the special interest money that you accept in order to finance your campaign speaks to your values and beliefs as a candidate. That being said, why should a candidate who accepts the sheer volume of PAC money that Sen. Clinton does from JP Morgan Chase, CSFB, the National Real Estate Investment Trust Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association, Merrill Lynch, etc. expect to be taken at all seriously when they stand up and say that they want to take on topics like predatory lending? You'd have an easier time selling me on a candidate that accepts PACs from BP, Shell, and Exxon and wants to stump for alternative energy but, admittedly, I'm biased here.

Funny that you go all the way back to, I believe, the first interview that we ever did on the topic Helix. And you're right; we said that - back in 2004. Note that, even back then, the statement said that mortgage servicing fraud is "similar" to predatory lending - not "just like it" as you say. Three years later our education has continued and we can now better articulate the issue and state that predatory lending and mortgage servicing fraud are two distinct entities. Predatory lending is an origination issue. Mortgage servicing fraud is a securitization issue. Pardon us for appearing disingenuous three years ago. At the time of the interview we were still very early on in the learning curve. Neither of us has either a degree in financing nor worked in the mortgage or banking industries so we've been at a bit of a disadvantage here. But, as you point out, Fairbanks is a mortgage servicer - not a lender. Parallels were drawn in the past because at the time we had no better language to describe mortgage servicing fraud and it was simply easier to place mortgage servicing fraud next to predatory lending because people had become familiar with that issue. And yet, here we are three years later, and still very few people know what mortgage servicing fraud is. But more are learning every day either by talking to someone that does know about it or by losing their own home to an illegal foreclosure.

And you are correct, you don't see the campaign contacts named - anymore. I originally DID name them in the first entry I made at BlueHampshire.com. The problem that I encountered when I named names was that my telephone blew up. Calls from said individual completely, if only briefly, sobbing and accusing me of attempting to destroy them professionally which was the furthest thing from my mind since they were merely mentioned in the capacity that they had made initial contact with us and continued to act as liaison. And in mentioning them, it detracted from what I was trying to say - so the names were removed and I haven't heard anything since.

Yes, Jenna declined to introduce Sen. Clinton when the offer was made as opposed to accepting and then having to cancel. That was actually the main consideration that we had to make when the offer was first received. But let me be perfectly clear once and for all - I harbor no ill feelings at all toward Kristi whatsoever. In fact, Kristi and Jenna have spoken since the event and Jenna was able to give Kristi a few suggestions. What I DID have a problem with was that what Kristi said in her intro sounded exactly like what was suggested to Jenna to speak about both in our private meeting with the Senator and in her intro had she accepted. Ok, I'll come right out and say it - I don't think Kristi wanted to say everything that she said in her introduction of Sen. Clinton. It is my belief that she was coached or coerced or it was otherwise suggested to her what she should say. I have spoken to dozens of people losing their homes to foreclosures both legitimate and illegal. They want to talk about the problem. They especially want to talk about what happened if they don't feel that they belong in their situation. They don't want to discuss the more embarrassing things that they may have to do in order to survive or in order to care for their family - especially not before a few hundred of their peers, especially not after driving through a neighborhood comprised of McMansions and especially not in front of half a dozen television cameras which translates into hundreds of thousands if not millions of additional families watching.

Personally, I don't care if I receive any media attention about my current situation. What I DO care about is that mortgage servicing fraud is exposed for what it is and that it is acknowledged that MSF actually exists - period. And to date, no one has. Now, hopefully, with the current implosion of hedge funds and the like the general public will begin to find out what mortgage servicing fraud really is. We attempted to educate the Clinton campaign about mortgage servicing fraud from the moment they first contacted us - and they did approach us we didn't seek them out. But the Clinton campaign didn't want to hear that we were anything other than predatory lending victims. And in no way did I attempt to "take over" the event. I don't know where you get that impression but it is simply wrong. We met with the Senator for the brief ten minutes or so that we had and we then went and watched the event. If, in doing so, any of those actions implied that we endorse Senator Clinton in any manner then those implications are absolutely incorrect.

If either Kristi Schofield or Clinton campaign staff would care to corroborate or refute what I have stated then they obviously have every right to. Unfortunately, I wasn't documenting the entire two weeks leading up to the event with a video camera. Yes, I have emails and voice mails that I feel support what I have said but to publish them would be absolutely pointless. And if any other candidate would like to contact us to discuss mortgage servicing fraud and what it entails then by all means we would love to speak with them regardless of party affiliation. As long as they recognize that mortgage servicing fraud is not predatory lending and that we will not allow words to be put in our mouths simply for the "privilege" of being allowed to appear with them in public I'm sure everything will be fine. I'm not even close to being a politician. I've never pretended to be one. I'm not going to pretend to be one simply to be allowed to interact with them. They work for me. If they want me to give them the job of running this country then they need to be able to show me that they have the intelligence, integrity, understanding and staff to do so and not just attempt to twist my personal story to fit their campaign agenda. If that is a problem for any of the candidates, Democratic or Republican, then of course they should find other citizens to illustrate their positions.

Thanks Iam, I appreciate the support. This is part of what is frustrating me. Personally, I don't care if my own situation is acknowledged. As far as I know, I'm the first homeowner in the country to have obtained both permanent injunctions and contempt orders against a servicer without having to file for Chapter 13 protection. My house has been protected from the illegal foreclosure for about a year now. We've actually been able to move on to playing offense as opposed to defense.

My problem is that no one seems to want to acknowledge that mortgage servicing fraud even exists. This really troubles me because I would be willing to bet that a good portion of the current foreclosure crisis has actually been caused by fraudulent mortgage servicers literally manufacturing defaults in order to extract additional fees.  And this is where I usually start losing people. What allows them to do this is that servicers get to keep things like late fees, forbearance fees and pre-payment penalties as "additional servicing compensation". They get to keep these fees because of the way that the Pooling and Servicing Agreements for the trust prospectuses are written. The fact that they get to pocket these fees takes away any incentive for a servicer to keep a homeowner current in their monthly mortgage payments. To do so cuts their bottom line significantly.

Everybody knows that predatory lending exists. Yes it's a big problem. But in the grand scheme of the mortgage industry predatory lending affects a far smaller population than mortgage servicing fraud potentially does. In order to be affected by predatory lending you have to accept a particular loan product that has been created in a predatory manner. In order to fall victim to mortgage servicing fraud all that has to happen is that your loan has to be sold off to the secondary market and securitized into a REMIC, REIT or other form of RMBS. And you, as a homeowner, have absolutely zero say or control as to who services your loan. The only remedy that a homeowner has is to attempt to refinance away from the predatory servicer and there is no guarantee that you won't simply end up right back with them or one that is even worse.

Mortgage servicing fraud is potentially a much larger problem than predatory lending. It began probably shortly after Lewis Ranieri began securitizing loans at Salomon Brothers in the 80's or so. I've been dealing with it for six years now and I know others that were dealing with it ten or fifteen years ago with Dime Savings Bank. Literally anyone reading this who has a mortgage could end up in the situation that I've been for the last six years. And yet, no one anywhere wants to acknowledge that it exists.