If you’ve been following the foreclosure mess, you know that last year all 50 AGs teamed up for an investigation in to the entire Fraudclosure business, with promises by some AGs that people would go to jail. That effort into large scale investigations seems to be dead in the water, while banks remain free to continue their bad practices.
A coalition of consumer groups is asking consumers to call their AG on February 3, 2011 (Thursday) to demand tough penalties for the bad actors in this business. Crime Shouldn’t Pay is their website, providing a way to find out contact information for AGs (Delaware AG Beau Biden: (302) 577-8338) with a suggested phone script and a petition to sign.
The AGs Office does show a Mortgage Fraud Taskforce, but I don’t know what they’ve been doing to address the massive lawlessness around foreclosures. It is probably time for the AG to let us all know what progress is being made. While we wait for that, make sure you call and let the AG know that big banks need serious penalties for their misbehavior and that there are homeowners out there in need of the protection of the law. And spread the word! Post the website on your Facebook page, send it out over Twitter and certainly email your friends the link to the Crime Shouldn’t Pay site.
After you’ve called, drop back here and let us know how it went. (Or just go back to the Crime Doesn’t Pay site and give them an update on your call.) Please take a few minutes to fight back today — it works to the banks’ favor to let this issue die down.
EDIT: Via Rortybomb:
Dylan Ratigan and the Huffington Post are highlighting the real issues with Fraudclosure all this week, in a series they are calling No Way To Live. He is posting up the TV segments he is doing all week. This is good stuff.
The Huffington Post is hosting foreclosure meetups across the country on February 8th. The idea is to get people going through this to talk to each other — to compare notes and make sure they know that they aren’t being singled out for this behavior. As Mike Konzcal notes: “This is another space for people to be able to gather and talk about what they are going through. The exhaustion, isolation and powerlessness is part of their strategy – spread the word to those in need.”
The Huffington Post takes a long look at one Michigan family utterly screwed over by the HAMP program.
It really is stunning that no one seems to be on a path for sanctions, trials or jail time for any of this. Which, really, is one more subsidy or bailout for these bankers. Time to stop it — please be sure to call.
(MORE, if you’ve time to read.) Mike Konzcal from Rortybom put together a series called Foreclosure Fraud for Dummies back in the fall that is the only thing you need to read about this mess: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5. You won’t be sorry you spent time with this.