Countrywide Home Loans was racist and automatically put African-Americans into exotic and expensive sub-prime loans they didn’t want or need, and couldn’t afford, according to a former employee. This employee worked there for two years up until the sub-prime meltdown. They write:
“…a customer would be qualified for a loan because their credit score and other factors based on the written product description, however, when I went in to put their (this only happened to African-Americans) – they were not qualified for the loan product and had to be referred to Countrywide’s subprime mortgage company Full Spectrum. Full Spectrum offered higher rates and fees. I got wise one day and started not inputing the race so the computer could give me “approval.”
Most of my troubles with Countrywide began when I was told I needed put customers in more exotic products such as the “No Income-No Ratio (NINA),” “Stated Income-Stated Assets (SISA),” any ARM product or the classic “Pay Option ARM” (where you have a choice of 4 payments). Countrywide offered incentives for putting customers in those types of products. My customers needed stability on their loan and didn’t need to refinance every two to three years stripping them of their equity (provided they had any). I didn’t agree with their policies so my tenure was short-lived.
Heinous. Just simply heinous. And these are the guys Kenneth Lewis is so eager to wed Bank of America to?
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>”[...]into exotic and expensive sub-prime loans they didn’t want or need, and couldn’t afford”
If they didn’t want them, why did they take out the loans? Or did Countrywide just send them wads of bills through the mail and expect people to pay it back?
@LadyCarolineLamb: Just so you know, there are scholarships for various races including for students of Scandinavian descent.
You have too much pent-up frustration. Get laid and cool off before you post some more angry posts will ya? Your posts might make more sense that way.
Oh too often, when I see this many comments on a website..You can bet there’s back and forth, off-topic arguing.
To all those complaining about this story not being properly vetted, the headline has a question mark in it, so it’s not a statement of fact.
Fox loves to do this with captions on the screen that say things like “If Hillary wins, have the terrorists won?”
This story doesn’t have anything to do with “irresponsible borrowers” and I don’t understand why there is so much discussion of them in this thread. I don’t know if this allegation is true or not, but the allegation is that black people who qualified for good loans were only offered bad loans solely because of race. Not because they were irresponsible, not because of their zip codes, solely because of race.
@daniinpa: Every discussion of subprime lending on this site has to devolve into a bunch of people screaming about irresponsible borrowers and how they have a 2% APR on their fixed-rate mortgage and they’re so much smarter than all these other people who were, you know, lied to. It’s a law.
The other law is that any discussion of racism has to devolve into BUT WHY CAN’T I GET A SCHOLARSHIP FOR BEING WHITE, as if there were a government office handing out free money to people who pass the paper-bag test.
A contrary view (obviously also opinion) – same bad tan, though:
[www.nypost.com]
GET A LAWYER, THIS IS A RIPE LAWSUIT WORTH MILLIONS!!!!
Corporate Tactic, rip off those who are unlikely to fight back. State Farm had to fight a huge punitive damage award in the US Supreme Court of over $120 million for intentionally not paying claims by focusing on the weak; on old people, minorities, and low educated people.
To say the least the only evidence was a manual that was not burned at corporate headquarters from a whistle blower.
Countrywide is smart, like State Farm they will hire someone to book burn away any liability and potential lawsuits. BETTEACT QUICKLY AND SUE THEM!!
I am saddened to see the tone of comments. So many people so eager to blast this submission out of the water. So much passion. I, for one, would have more respect for some of you just came out and said “I don’t like minorities”. Where’s your courage? Anyways, here’s a quote and a link; I can’t personally guarantee either’s accuracy.
“Now, what kind of American is ‘sub-prime.’ Guess. No peeking. Here’s a hint: 73% of HIGH INCOME Black and Hispanic borrowers were given sub-prime loans versus 17% of similar-income Whites. Dark-skinned borrowers aren’t stupid – they had no choice. They were ‘steered’ as it’s called in the mortgage sharking business.”
[www.gregpalast.com]