News, Research & Insights for American Homeowners, Patriots & Constitutional Conservatives
Slipping?
Has the economy improved over the last three quarters? Not for Barack Obama and the DNC. The last quarter of fundraising in 2011 brought in a combined total of $68 million, the lowest of the three reporting quarters last year for both: President Obama’s reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee raised a combined $68 [...]
In early October of 2011, Bank of America announced that it would begin charging its customers an additional $5 users fee for using its debit cards. In my financial literacy class the weekend after the announcement, some students were resigned to it, some furious, but we all vowed to switch banks if we banked at BofA. Yet we all also knew what would happen next, if history was any indication. Other banks would follow suit and eventually we’d all get charged the fee, which would just go up even more over time. It turns out, at least for now, the ending is happier. People mobilized around recent college grad Molly Katchpole’s online petition requesting a reversal of the fees.The petition was brilliant in its simplicity, stating simply this:
Greetings,
I'm writing to express my deep concern over Bank of America's decision to charge customers $5 a month to use their debit cards when making purchases.
The American people bailed out Bank of America during a financial crisis the banks helped create. You paid zero dollars in federal income tax last year. And now your banks profiting, raking in $2 billion in profits last quarter alone. How can you justify squeezing another $60 a year from your debit card customers? This is despicable.
The American people bailed out Bank of America during a financial crisis the banks helped create. You paid zero dollars in federal income tax last year. And now your banks profiting, raking in $2 billion in profits last quarter alone. How can you justify squeezing another $60 a year from your debit card customers? This is despicable.
American consumers can't afford these additional fees. We reject any claims by BofA that this latest fee is somehow necessary.
Please, do the right thing. Reverse your decision to charge customers $5 each month for using their debit cards to make purchases.
[Your name]
Party because of the petition, Bank of America announced on November 1, 2011 that it would not move forward with implementing the debit card fee. BofA co-chief operating officer David Darnell stated in a press release that “We have listened to our customers very closely over the last few weeks and recognize concern with our proposed debit usage fee. Our customers’ voices are most important to us. As a result, we are not currently charging the fee and will not be moving forward with any additional plans to do so.”
Hundreds of thousands of consumers joined the movement to push Bank of America, and its competitors, to eliminate its $5 debit card fee. In less than one month, Bank of America went from announcing the fee, to reeling under huge pressure from the media, Congress and Change.org. When Bank of America announced that it was restructuring the fee, Molly and others continued to push the Bank until it agreed to end the fee for all customers.
Pretty amazing for Molly and the over 306,000 other customers who signed her petition. Using Change.org, Molly was able to recruit hundreds of thousands of people across the country to join her in successfully challenging one of America’s most powerful financial institutions – and also in influencing the behavior of other major banks.
Obviously, Molly’s petition was not the only expression of customer complaint. Plenty of others were mad too. Andy Borowitz, of the Wonderful Borowitz Report, posted this spoof letter about the fee reversal:
NOVEMBER 2, 2011
A Letter from Bank of America
An Apology to Our Customers
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) – The following letter was sent today by Bank of America to all of its debit card customers:
Dear Valued Customer:
As most of you probably know by now, last month we instituted a $5 monthly fee for all of our debit card users. To say that what followed this decision was a shitstorm would be a massive understatement.
Considering that just three years earlier taxpayers had bailed us out with billions of their hard-earned dollars, it’s understandable that Bank of America was compared to a person who, as he is pulled from a burning building, turns and kicks the fireman in the nuts.
That’s why we are writing to you today with a simple message: “Our bad.” And to tell you that we are refunding the $5 to you, effective immediately. All you have to do is pay a simple, one-time $10 refund fee.
You can receive your refund online, or pick it up at your nearest Bank of America branch, where a teller will hand the money directly to you for a simple, one-time $15 handling fee.
If you do visit your branch, feel free to use any of our services, including our state of the art ballpoint pens and deposit slips. (Prices on request.)
Again, accept our apologies for instituting the debit card fee. We have learned our lesson, and we make this solemn promise: next time we squeeze money from you, we'll do it in a way you won’t notice.
Sincerely,
Bank of America
While yesterday’s New York Times says banks will always find ways to charge us more anyway, I am posting this to encourage consumer to speak out. In this case, the American consumer actually stemmed this tide. How inspiring!
JEDTI= Jurists Engaged in Defense of Title Integrity
The first JEDTI group was formed by Clearwater, Florida attorney and title insurance expert Greg Clark. It’s a cohesive group of att0rney members with vast and varied legal backgrounds and areas of expertise, including appellate law, trial work, corporate and business transactional and litigation experience. The members are committed to defending judges and our courts and to sounding the alarm that today’s sloppy and improper foreclosure practices are going to have catastrophic consequences on property ownership in this country for decades to come. JEDTI presents both a warning and a solution.
During the last quarter of 2010, the rest of the world woke up to the dark storm clouds that cover our country, dark foreboding storm clouds full of rain and lighting that are soaking through and destroying the record title ownership system that is one of the foundations of this country. The existing mess will take years to clear up, but we can prevent the situation from getting worse by not moving forward on cases where real questions exist.
As we all dust off the dirt, the slop, the filth that was 2010, it’s time to clear the decks, flush out the toxic slop that clogs our courts and start fresh. We cannot continue the practice of foreclosure business as usual in 2011. We cannot continue the reckless race to summary judgment that caused so much uproar during the last half of 2010. Instead, it’s time for our courts to find legitimate, fair and rule-based reasons to dismiss many of the cases that clog the backlogged foreclosure docket. Failure to Prosecute, Failure to Serve Defendants, Failure to Verify, Failure to State a Cause of Action, Improper Plaintiff. All of these offer legitimate and appropriate reasons to dismiss the cases that are filed (and many forgotten) but which continue to choke our court systems.
Rather than ignore or dismiss Defendant’s Motions to Dismiss, our courts must respond to the arguments and recognize that granting motions to dismiss is an appropriate way to mete out judicial efficiency and be responsive to taxpayer demands that our courts do equity and manage taxpayer resources. The fact of the matter is that our courts and every single taxpayer in this state are subsidizing the improper practices of the foreclosure mills. The foreclosure mills made business decisions to cut corners and turn profits. They make millions while our courts struggle to keep up with their toxic deluge.
There are jurists across this state who are engaged in the battle not just the defense of title integrity but also the defense of our judges and court system in general. There are judges and private practice attorneys and attorneys that work with law enforcement and regulatory agencies who are battling every day to set all of this right and turn this around. We can never be certain what this new year will bring, but we all know the current state of affairs cannot continue.
We’ve all got to work together to usher in a new era of solutions to this problem that continues to grip our country. We need to show the general public the critical function that attorneys serve in the midst of this crisis by continuing the tireless service to our clients, our courts and our country. Let’s hope 2011 ushers in a new era and that real resolution can be reached.
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I have a lot of conversations with people about our economy, foreclosures and such… from clients to friends in business to attorneys. Everyone who’s asked me what I foresee coming I’ve told them that 2010 will be a very tough year and they better prepare now. We aren’t done yet folks… and the policies of the Obama Administration and our collective disaster we call Congress, are going to make things even worse – and very well will extend the recession quite painfully. I have told people to expect another wave of foreclosures. As long as you have no job creation and more job loss happening every day, this cycle won’t stop. It’s as simple as that.
And with that, I bring you fresh news…
08/20/2009 By: Carrie Bay
More than nine percent of all mortgages in the United States are now delinquent, according to figures released Thursday by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).
The delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties rose to 9.24 percent of all loans outstanding at the end of the second quarter, MBA reported. The new number breaks the record set in the first quarter of this year, when 9.12 percent of the nation’s homeowners were behind on their mortgage payments.
Important to note is that the biggest jump in delinquencies last quarter came from prime fixed-rate mortgages. These seemingly low-risk loans also accounted for one in three of the nation’s foreclosure starts in Q2. A year ago they were only one in five.
Like prime, Federal Housing Administration loans are generally thought to be “safe,” but foreclosure starts among government-insured mortgages jumped to 9.1 percent last quarter – a record-high for the agency.
The states of California, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada continue to drag down the national numbers. These four had 44 percent of all the nation’s new foreclosures in Q2. Rhode Island, Georgia, and Michigan also posted foreclosure start rates above the national average. All
other states in the country fell below the national benchmark, and roughly half even saw their new foreclosure numbers decline.
But then, there’s the not-so-sunny Sunshine State. Florida has cemented itself as the worst state in the union for mortgage performance. Twelve percent of all mortgages there were somewhere in the process of foreclosure at the end of June, and another 5 percent were more than 90 days past due and about to cross that threshold. Based on MBA’s numbers, Florida has the highest foreclosure and delinquency rates in the country, and MBA’s chief economist, Jay Brinkmann, says he doesn’t expect to see a turnaround in Florida’s housing market for a long, long time.
Some fortunate regional markets are faring better and offsetting Florida’s bad numbers because the nation’s total foreclosure starts during the second quarter actually dropped slightly. Foreclosure actions were initiated on 1.36 percent of the nation’s outstanding mortgages, compared to 1.35 percent during the first three months of the year, MBA reported.
Despite the leveling off of foreclosure starts, the fact that loans 90 or more days past due continues to climb in all categories suggests an overhang of foreclosure activity and engorged inventories of repossessed homes may be looming in the coming months.
So, when is the foreclosure problem going to crest? Brinkmann, points out that unemployment is currently the primary driver behind missed mortgage payments.
The number of jobless Americans is forecast to peak in mid-2010, and Brinkmann says he expects delinquencies to top out at about the same time. But because of the lag time associated with foreclosure proceedings, he doesn’t see a break in the upward trend of foreclosures until six months later, at the close of next year.
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