mortgage crisis 3 articles

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, Feb. 21 revived a long-running whistleblower lawsuit against Wells Fargo by remanding it to the U.S. Second Circuit Appeals Court, which last year affirmed a lower court’s ruling dismissing the case. The case was filed by Robert Kraus and Paul Bishop, former officials of two banks Wells Fargo acquired. Mr. Kraus and Mr. Bishop brought the complaint in 2011 under the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act, which allows private parties to sue on behalf of the government in cases of suspected fraud targeting federal agencies and programs. Mr. Kraus is former controller ... Read More

N.Y., N.Y. — A whistleblower who was instrumental in recovering $614 million for federal mortgage loan programs from JP Morgan Chase & Co. will receive $63.9 million as his share, according to a Reuters report. Louisiana resident Keith Edwards sued JP Morgan on behalf of the U.S. government in January 2013 under the qui tam or “whistleblower” provisions of the U.S. False Claims Act. Mr. Edwards worked for the banking giant from 2003 to 2008 as an assistant vice president. His responsibilities involved supervising a government insuring unit of the company. Mr. Edwards alleged that JP Morgan defrauded the government ... Read More

It never takes long for shady consumer predators to find another way to rip unsuspecting people off. While the U.S. is struggling to emerge from a mortgage crisis that tore down the national economy, dozens of mortgage-reduction scammers have been using major online search engines to sell their bogus services. Microsoft, the owner of Bing and the ad provider for Yahoo, and Google have been raking in millions of dollars by allowing – and allegedly encouraging — mortgage scammers to advertise with them. The victims: people who are struggling to make ends meet — desperate to avoid foreclosure and homelessness. ... Read More