Anonymous Leaks Internal Bank of America Emails 535
euphemistic writes "Reportedly the information Wikileaks was set to disclose about a particular bank back from December, 'a massive batch of internal Bank of America emails' has been leaked. While the site hosting it seems to currently be down due to the obviously gigantic amount of traffic interested in this leak, the leak is said to pertain to the Bank of America's improper foreclosure on homes. 'The report came from a former employee with Balboa Insurance — a risk management and insurance firm. The employee reportedly corresponded with Bank of America employees and was told to falsify loan numbers on documents to force Bank of America to foreclose on homeowners.'"
Re:I will be closing my BOA account.... (Score:5, Informative)
Switch to a local credit union. That is, by far, your best alternative.
Re:leaked? (Score:3, Informative)
If Wikileaks has something, this isn't it. These docs were directly leaked to ANON.
BTW, I'm a total luddite but occasionally hang out in Anon's IRC channel, you should too, its not like its hard to sign on.
And now I'm on the terrorist watchlist and a botnet.
Where's the beef? (Score:1, Informative)
From reading batch #1 of the e-mails, it seems that a batch of letters were sent out in error and the company did not want those letters being linked to the loans. Of course the e-mails don't mention enough details. but it sure sounds like the insurrance company sent out a hundred letters claiming that homeowners didn't have insurance, and threatening to impose forced placement insurance (Balboa's business). Then Balboa realized it was in error and asked BofA to remove the incorrect letters from the loan files so that BofA employees wouldn't get confused and think that the homeowners had loan problems.
Its misguided and a dumb idea, but not some great criminal conspiracy. The rest of the Wikileaks post is a polemic against the american banking system, which shows that they have no real interest in outing fraud and corruption, but merely want to be an annoyance to hurt the bankers.
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
Re:No one investigating, no one going to jail (Score:2, Informative)
" ((( some smart saying I can't think of that means investment people who steal money)))."
Fraud?
Re:I will be closing my BOA account.... (Score:4, Informative)
Unless you get a non-transferable mortgage. You often have to opt for a slightly higher rate if you go that route, but the option is there.
Re:Well, now we know why (Score:5, Informative)
And why they bought every single domain name using "Sucks" and "Blows" [motherboard.tv] that involves Bank of America and all their executive management.
Re:I will be closing my BOA account.... (Score:5, Informative)
Also, if credit unions aren't an option for you (which depending on your laws they may not be), at least look for a locally owned bank. They have in general been behaving much better towards their customers and depositors than the big guys.
Incompetence Conspiracy (Score:5, Informative)
As someone who has worked for a big bank, I can assure you that while there are pockets of AMAZINGLY retarded people that commit blatant fraud, it is mostly just a large group of MOSTLY retarded people committing fraud and not really recognizing that's what they're doing.
I worked hand in hand with the foreclosure group and I think I can summarize what's really been happening:
1) Overwhelming Workload + Incompetent Staff = Mistakes
a) Leads to massive spike in hiring through temporary agencies and the introduction of a much larger group of incompetent people into the process.
2) Convoluted, counterproductive processes + people who can't use excel spreadsheets = Mistakes
a) See 1a
3) Incentive Structure - This one's a bit harder but most banks use production based incentive structures to pay employees beyond their base pay. The more work you do, the more money you make. If it's easier to get rid of a "file" (troubled loan) by tossing it to the foreclosure group and having it roll through that process than it is to help someone save their house, guess what happens. If it takes you an hour to successfully help someone (which it doesn't, it takes days or weeks) or 10 minutes to move their file to foreclosure and therefore out of your stack, and you get paid based on how many files you move out of your stack, guess where all your files go.
4) Banks DONT LIKE TO RESCIND SALES. It costs them money.
To me, this is all SUPER old news. I watched this happen in real time for years and the news was always WAY behind on what was happening and WHY. It's not as simple as "banks are greedy and committing fraud/crime." That's certainly a part of it, but not nearly half of it. Realistically it's "There's too much work to do and the people doing it truly don't understand what they're doing"
It's way easier to recognize what's really happening when you look at how things are done at the bottom. Listening to CEOs and PR reps is a waste of time, they have no idea what's really going on underneath them.
The problems we have always faced are the result of incompetence, period. More to the point the problem is people.
Re:Well, now we know why (Score:3, Informative)
The only sane way to decide whether Manning deserves protection as a whistle-blower is a trial.
TORRENT LINK, COME ONE, COME ALL! (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.mediafire.com/?9gig97gio0g3b7b [mediafire.com]
Who wants torrents? Come and get 'em! (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry to reply off-topic, but I want to post this as high up as possible:
http://www.mediafire.com/?9gig97gio0g3b7b [mediafire.com]
Here is the torrent file. BoA seems to be sockpuppet-rushing TPB to mark the torrents as fake.
Ummm... Sorry... (Score:5, Informative)
But I find him no more, and perhaps less, a credible source than the banks. That site is written by Karl Denninger, who is a Tea Partier and Glenn Beck fan. Ok fine, but that does not speak to someone who is very balanced on the issues. That is a hardcore "Gold standard is the ONLY standard," kind of individual and not someone who has a good understanding of the complexities of finance and a balanced view (the phrase "bleeding heart liberals" is a favourite).
Re:And... (Score:2, Informative)
BoA and Taxes (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know what's in those leaked e-mails, but this item is just as big - and scandalous,
"GE isn't the only "Top 5" company on this year's Fortune 500 list that owed no income taxes. Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), which suffered major losses in 2009, included a tax benefit of $1.9 billion in its annual profit."
http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/16/news/companies/ge_7000_tax_returns/ [cnn.com]
Re:Link? (Score:2, Informative)