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London’s Financial Times reports that the second-largest U.S. mortgage servicer, Wells Fargo, flew under the radar for weeks, as several megabanks were scrutinized for failing to adhere to the law when pushing their foreclosure paperwork. As the scandal unraveled, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and GMAC halted foreclosures in order to review their procedures. But not Wells Fargo, despite a deposition by a loan officer who conceded to signing as many as 500 foreclosure-related papers in a single day for the bank, after verifying only that her name and title appeared correctly.
Confessions like that, along with practices such as “robosigning,” in which electronic signatures are used (via the Dallas Morning News), and the employment of “‘Burger King kids’—walk-in hires who were so inexperienced they barely knew what a mortgage was” (via The New York Times)—have spawned myriad questions, and now a major investigation.
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Yesterday, Colorado joined a coalition of 50 states and the District of Columbia to call on lenders to halt foreclosures and to guarantee the process is fair and accurate, reports the Denver Business Journal. “I signed onto this multistate effort for the fundamental reason that we need to ensure the integrity of Colorado’s foreclosure process,” says Colorado Attorney General John Suthers.