Waiting Seven Years For Two Answers

[Injin]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/business/27gret.html?_r=1&ref=business

WHEN Zella Mae Green of Georgia filed for bankruptcy to save her home from foreclosure in 2004, she and her lawyer wanted to know two things: Did she actually owe any back payments on her mortgage? And, if so, to whom?

It didn’t seem like a lot to ask. But until last week, those questions had been unanswered for seven years.

....

Story No. 1: The note was lost. Wells Fargo’s lawyers produced a sworn statement to that effect made on Oct. 20, 2004, by Lisa Joseph, a Wells Fargo employee. But that affidavit was incomplete. The section where Ms. Joseph was supposed to describe the diligent search she had conducted to find the note was blank. The document also said that a copy of the mortgage was attached. It wasn’t.

....

in July 2006, that Story No. 2 emerged. The Wells employee said that the note had never been transferred to the bank, ergo, Wells could not have lost it, as Ms. Joseph had previously sworn.

Two months later, Wells filed a brief conceding that it did not own a security interest in Ms. Green’s loan but asking the court to dismiss Ms. Green’s suit. The court refused

.....

Late last month came Story No. 3. Wells told the court that it had found the missing note. It sits in the bank’s files in Maryland.

Late last week, Wells Fargo agreed to a settlement with Ms. Green. The terms are confidential. The deal came shortly after the United States Trustee, the unit of the Justice Department that oversees the nation’s bankruptcy courts, indicated it was interested in the facts of the case.

And it will have been in Maryland all along, of course.....

Edited February 28, 2011 by Injin

[Monkey]

i wonder if the ink was/is still wet on the "found" note?

[Injin]

i wonder if the ink was/is still wet on the "found" note?

Either that or it's covered in UPS stickers.

[longtomsilver]

I worked for an investment bank where the files were all over the place. The SFA did an investigation on our internal audit trail going back 7 years taking over an office in the building.. can't remember exactly how long they stopped but it was my job to 'find' the archives... wet ink, the tops of dusty cabinets and tea bags formed a small part of my manufacturing enterprise

[Injin]

I worked for an investment bank where the files were all over the place. The SFA did an investigation on our internal audit trail going back 7 years taking over an office in the building.. can't remember exactly how long they stopped but it was my job to 'find' the archives... wet ink, the tops of dusty cabinets and tea bags formed a small part of my manufacturing enterprise

Sigh.

Go and hand yourself in.

[bogbrush]

I worked for an investment bank where the files were all over the place. The SFA did an investigation on our internal audit trail going back 7 years taking over an office in the building.. can't remember exactly how long they stopped but it was my job to 'find' the archives... wet ink, the tops of dusty cabinets and tea bags formed a small part of my manufacturing enterprise

I hope you managed to get all the signatures right. That would have been quite hard what with you not having any originals to copy from.

Would they sentence you concurrently or consecutively, I wonder?

[longtomsilver]

It was hardly the crime of the century and I was no Frank Abignail... the signatures were all genuine as the whole department was complicit. On a few occasions none of the then current crop of authorised signatories would wash and as bold as brass I simply left that field blank scrawling duplicate across every page, I recall sh**ing myself handing the first one of these unsigned files over to the investigator and waited as he scanned every page fully expecting him to seek a good explanation as any good investigator should but he didn't! It was a damage limitation exercise and nothing more to save us from a fine.

[leicestersq]

It was hardly the crime of the century and I was no Frank Abignail... the signatures were all genuine as the whole department was complicit. On a few occasions none of the then current crop of authorised signatories would wash and as bold as brass I simply left that field blank scrawling duplicate across every page, I recall sh**ing myself handing the first one of these unsigned files over to the investigator and waited as he scanned every page fully expecting him to seek a good explanation as any good investigator should but he didn't! It was a damage limitation exercise and nothing more to save us from a fine.

How much money was involved?

Isnt there something in the states that allows whistle blowers to obtain 10% of any fine levied against a company for the sorts of crimes that you are describing? If you have proof of these activities, even if you were involved in them, it could make you rich, and bang up a lot of criminals.

They will only commit further crimes if this sort of nonsense goes unpunished.

[Nationalist]

I hope you managed to get all the signatures right. That would have been quite hard what with you not having any originals to copy from.

Nah, just copy the sigs off the letter demanding to see the original document.

[longtomsilver]

How much money was involved?

Isnt there something in the states that allows whistle blowers to obtain 10% of any fine levied against a company for the sorts of crimes that you are describing? If you have proof of these activities, even if you were involved in them, it could make you rich, and bang up a lot of criminals.

They will only commit further crimes if this sort of nonsense goes unpunished.

There was no money involved, no financial gain or loss. It was more to do with having lax controls in place. I've just googled the very same bank and found they got fined ny the FSA millions of dollars a few years back for something similar, just another office that's all. Swings and roundabouts.

[leicestersq]

There was no money involved, no financial gain or loss. It was more to do with having lax controls in place. I've just googled the very same bank and found they got fined ny the FSA millions of dollars a few years back for something similar, just another office that's all. Swings and roundabouts.

If there was no financial gain, then whatever it is you were doing wouldnt have happened. No investment bank does anything without anticipating a large return on capital deployed.

So what was it they were fiddling?

[tomandlu]

Hmm, I was once (inadvertently) involved with some of the paperwork behind a large scale fraud. A bonded warehouse sold most of their clients' wine stock - and the warehouse hired me to photocopy all the client records in order to send them to potential buyers.

I didn't know what was going on at the time, and it was only when I saw the court-case in the papers a few years later that I realised what had happened...

www.independent.co.uk

[longtomsilver]

If there was no financial gain, then whatever it is you were doing wouldnt have happened. No investment bank does anything without anticipating a large return on capital deployed.

So what was it they were fiddling?

They were fiddling the audit that's all. One of the old computer systems had so many holes in it that you could authorise your own trades, conduit monies etc etc without having to go through the proper route of two authorised signatories if you knew how and it was only human for the staff to do it themselves as it saved them time - hence no paper trail. I was shocked the first time I saw somebody do this in person and never did it myself as I used to consider getting signatures off the trading floor as a skive!

Edited February 28, 2011 by tomposh101

[Injin]

They were fiddling the audit that's all. One of the old computer systems had so many holes in it that you could authorise your own trades, conduit monies etc etc without having to go through the proper route of two authorised signatories if you knew how and it was only human for the staff to do it themselves as it saved them time - hence no paper trail. I was shocked the first time I saw somebody do this in person and never did it myself as I used to consider getting signatures off the trading floor as a skive!

And do you think this was just at your bank, or was it all the banks all the time because it's all ******** anyway?

Good luck getting folk to pay the mortgages when this penny finally drops.

[leicestersq]

They were fiddling the audit that's all. One of the old computer systems had so many holes in it that you could authorise your own trades, conduit monies etc etc without having to go through the proper route of two authorised signatories if you knew how and it was only human for the staff to do it themselves as it saved them time. I was shocked the first time I saw somebody do this in person and never did it myself as I used to consider getting signatures off the trading floor as a skive!

Oh my. You can see so many holes in this you couldnt catch a fish with it.

The audit is proof that the companies worth is what it says it is. If you have to go through all of this, then the company are admitting a lack of control, and they cannot really say what the company is worth.

The lack of control is something that ought to be addressed, or else the company could easily lose a lot of money through one of those many holes.

[longtomsilver]

And do you think this was just at your bank, or was it all the banks all the time because it's all ******** anyway?

Good luck getting folk to pay the mortgages when this penny finally drops.

I've worked at 3 investment banks and saw dubious practices at two of them. It's endemic.

Edited February 28, 2011 by tomposh101

[longtomsilver]

Oh my. You can see so many holes in this you couldnt catch a fish with it.

The audit is proof that the companies worth is what it says it is. If you have to go through all of this, then the company are admitting a lack of control, and they cannot really say what the company is worth.

The lack of control is something that ought to be addressed, or else the company could easily lose a lot of money through one of those many holes.

Money walked out the door all the time. It was simply brushed under the carpet as this kind of publicity stood to lose the banks hundreds of millions in client money.

Edited February 28, 2011 by tomposh101