Occupy Detroit staged a pretty creative protest at a Bank of America branch in downtown Detroit modeled after the board game, “Monopoly”. They even had a guy dressed up like Rich Uncle Moneybags.
Occupy Detroit Stages “Foreclosure Monoply” Protest At BofA Branch
May 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Like Crooked Circus Carnies, BofA Teases 200,000 Homeowners With Principal Writedowns
May 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment
They Only Get Them If They Jump Through Hoops And Qualify
Diana Olick, CNBC
A select group of struggling mortgage borrowers are about to get an offer that sounds too good to be true. Executives at Bank of America say they will begin mailing 200,000 letters offering certain customers mortgage principal reduction.
If people get these things and toss them, they won’t be eligible,” says Ron Sturzenegger, the Bank of America executive charged with providing solutions to borrowers in need of mortgage assistance.
But the offer is real, and eligible borrowers could get as much as $150,000 knocked off the balance of their mortgages. It is all part of the $25 billion settlement reached this year between federal and state agencies and the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers over fraudulent foreclosure document processing (so-called “robo-signing”).
Bank of America [BAC 7.79 
-0.17 (-2.14%) 
], in a deal with state attorneys general and the U.S. Department of Justice, committed $11 billion to mortgage principal reduction, but executives say they will go beyond that if enough borrowers respond to their offer. Five thousand borrowers have already received a collective $700 million in principal reduction through a pilot program for those already in a modification negotiation. The 200,000 borrowers being targeted now may have already exhausted modification options or may have yet to contact the lender.
BofA Shareholders And Protesters Target BofA Management Over Foreclosures
May 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Andrew Dunn, Charlotte Observer
Shareholders making their way to Bank of America’s annual meeting in uptown Charlotte on Wednesday may find themselves weaving through scores of protesters angry over everything from coal-project financing to executive pay.
The shareholders have concerns of their own: Bank of America’s stock price has fallen nearly 40 percent since last year’s annual meeting in Charlotte. And despite a modest rebound so far in 2012, the lender’s performance still lags its big-bank peers.
While protesters and shareholders have vastly different concerns, they do have one major issue in common: the bad mortgages that continue to weigh down the bank.
Subprime mortgages contributed to hundreds of thousands of people losing their homes. They also have cost the bank billions in legal settlements and loan losses.
Protesters want to see a halt to foreclosures. Shareholders, weary of write-downs and legal costs, are eager for the bank to put the mortgage issues behind it and focus on growth.
Biden and Schneiderman Investigating Improper MBS Bundling
May 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment
David McLaughlin, Bloomberg
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Delaware’s Beau Biden are investigating banks for failing to package mortgages into bonds as advertised to investors, three months after a group of lenders struck a nationwide $25 billion settlement over foreclosure practices.
The states are pursuing allegations that some home loans weren’t correctly transferred into securitizations, undermining investors’ stakes in the mortgages, according to two people with knowledge of the probes. They’re also concerned about improper foreclosures on homeowners as result, said the people, who declined to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
The probes prolong the fallout from the six-year housing bust that’s cost Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and other lenders more than $72 billion because of poor underwriting and shoddy foreclosures. It may also give ammunition to bondholders suing banks, said Isaac Gradman, an attorney and managing member of IMG Enterprises LLC, a mortgage-backed securities consulting firm.
“The attorneys general could create a lot of problems for the banks and for the trustees and for bondholders,” Gradman said. “I can’t imagine a better securities law claim than to say that you represented that these were mortgage-backed securities when in fact they were backed by nothing.”
Countrywide Faulted
Schneiderman said Bank of America Corp. (BAC)’s Countrywide Financial unit last year made errors in the way it packaged home loans into bonds, while investors have sued trustee banks, saying documentation lapses during mortgage securitizations can impair their ability to recover losses when homeowners default. Schneiderman didn’t sue Bank of America in connection with that criticism.
