California sues Countrywide

Unfortunately, there are so many people out there who did not understand that terms of the loans they were obtaining.

There were definitely people out there that weren't fully aware of what they were getting into, but I know of a few that made a choice to ignore things and roll the dice.  How do we separate the two groups in dealing with foreclosures? I guess whoever figures that out will be the next American hero.

On a side note, I still don't understand why BofA is going through with this purchase, it like a buyer getting a home inspection with a cracked foundation, faulty wiring, no plumbing, and still buying the property without a price negotiation... go figure.

We are with the commenter who said they do not understand why Bank of America is going through with this deal. It seems to make little sense. Just our 2 cents.

I have had enough of dealing with Country wide in Florida too! The top mgt. makes decisions and the level we deal with aren't filled in or qualified to put into action what decisions were made. It is such a mess!

Having worked with them many times, I can tell you that their 'misinformation campaign' on the riskier loans (the Pay-Option ARMs for example) started at the top, went right down through their AE's (the people we dealt with) and that in turn armed US with incorrect information. I did ONE Pay-Option ARM, and my my was I embarrassed. Their pitch line was 'the rate is based on this index plus this margin' (Just like all ARM's) BUT, they would also say 'The index is a 12 month average, so even if it rises in month 10, it's averaged out over the other months and the payment will rise, but BARELY! It's great!!!'. The AE's were armed with misleading charts and graphs showing minimal payment adjustments. Was it risky? Sure. But for certain clients, it made sense... or so we thought... But it was all.....

Lies.

My client's payment rose every single month, and by about $50. Nice Countrywide. This also goes back to the 'blame the mortgage brokers' for everything. To me, that's just a cop-out. The lenders that created and pushed these loans do have to take the majority of responsibility. Managment misinformed their staff, their staff misinformed us, and we misinformed consumers. Plain and simple... I hope they go down in flames just for being snakes...

When refinancing our home we were almost sucked into a "great" interest rate with a 5 yr ARM.  Then we were told, the rate was being bought down by paying the "points" (on top of the closing costs and processing fees).  THE BROKER DIDN'T EVEN MENTION THAT THERE WAS ALSO A PREPAY PENALTY on top of everything until I asked !!!!! 

Do I blame the Banks for this mess - absolutly! and I'm going to get a lot of hate mail for saying this,  but a LOT of people also made a LOT of money KNOWING what they were selling, but not fully explaining it the the consumer.  If I hadn't already been sucked down the prepay penalty road before I would have thought it was a sweet deal and not even asked - I'm sure that is what they were hoping for.

Connie- NO hate mail from me! :) What you speak of is more of the ABUSE of these risky loan programs. For example, on the Option ARM's, we got paid more if we talked borrowers into taking a higher margin. I had a buyer client of mine that I tried talking out of using his mortgage guy when I learned that he was offering a margin of 3.7% or something OBSCENE... what that meant was, he was probably making DOUGH from the lender (probably 3 points) PLUS he was charging a point up front to do the loan. Some loan officers just don't care. Still, whatever program there is, there will be people taking advantage of others. Right now, the program of the day is FHA- and the abuses there are unbelievable!

It's been three weeks and there's been very little news on this ... has anyone read anything further?

Thanks for sharing, it appears that CountryWide has alot of problems.  I also wonder where is the consumer responsiblity in all of this? 

This is a first for me. I would like to know the outcome on this too.

"SEC may charge Countrywide's Mozilo" - 5/15/09

What took them so long.....??