Countrywide Made Racist Sub-Prime Loans?

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?

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.