The Whistleblower's Tale: Countrywide Investigator Fired for Doing Her Job...

[Brewman_Jax]

The Whistleblower's Tale: Countrywide Investigator Fired for Doing Her Job While Rampant Fraud Was Concealed

http://www.alternet.org/story/156375/the...concealed/

From the article:

Quote:Countrywide Financial was one of the subprime lenders at the heart of the financial crisis; its predatory lending practices resulted in disgustingly large payouts for executives while sticking low-income borrowers with explosive mortgages they hadn't a hope of paying back. The New York Times' Gretchen Morgenson called Countrywide, “Exhibit A for the lax and, until recently, highly lucrative lending that has turned a once-hot business ice cold and has touched off a housing crisis of historic proportions.”

Eileen Foster was an investigator in charge of Fraud Risk Management at Countrywide when the ticking time bomb of its bad loans detonated. The practices she discovered shocked her and have also shocked those who've heard her story—including the producers of “60 Minutes,” who asked her on the program last December to discuss the lack of prosecutions of any of the bankers responsible for the crisis. But instead of cleaning house and admitting guilt, Bank of America—which purchased Countrywide as the financial crisis grew, in what the Wall Street Journal calls “one of the worst deals ever struck in corporate America”--drove Foster out and tried to discredit her findings.

In 2011, the Department of Labor ruled that Foster had been illegally fired. It said that her firing was retaliation for her whistle-blowing and ordered that she be reinstated and paid compensation. There have still been no prosecutions, and no officials have asked to hear Foster's story—so she's taking it public. Earlier this year, she was honored with a Ridenhour prize for truth-telling from the Nation Institute and the Fertel Foundation, and this week she spoke with AlterNet in an exclusive interview discussing what she saw at Countrywide—and what happened to her as a result.

...

An eye-opening article. Fraud runs rampant; the execs at the top get little or no oversight and fewer consequences, the investigators get punished and the borrowers are blamed for the whole mess. Until some senior executives get arrested and the laws are changed so they can't buy their favorite Congressional reps and stop the fraud, mortgage fraud won't stop and the economy will be at risk...again.

[sandnsea]

Thanks for posting, I'm going to read later when I have a little more brain and a little less grandkids, lol. I think the whole subprime industry, the way these people ran it, was a fraud. Everybody who got hooked into one of these should have had an immediate rewrite of their mortgage to a 30 year fixed. I've said it before, that's the biggest mistake of Obama's Presidency and probably a big reason the economy isn't more stable. They're still shoving these mortgages on people, even the government programs that are supposed to be helping people.