Do You Want to Play Hide and Seek??!!
Bank of America never ceases to amaze me! Chris Nicholson from Dealbook reports, “A hacker organization known as Anonymous released a series of e-mails on Monday provided by a former Bank of America employee who claims they show how a division of the bank sought to hide information on foreclosures.
The bank unit, Balboa Insurance, was acquired by Bank of America when it bought the mortgage lender Countrywide Financial in 2008. Balboa deals in so-called force-placed insurance coverage on mortgages. The e-mail messages concern the removal of information linking loans to other documentation. The e-mails dating from November 2010 concern correspondence among Balboa employees in which they discuss taking steps to alter the record about certain documents “that went out in error.” The documents were related to loans by GMAC, a Bank of America client, according to the e-mails.
The following GMAC DTN’s need to have the images removed from Tracksource/Rembrandt,” an operations team manager at Balboa wrote. DTN refers to document tracking number, and Tracksource/Rembrandt is an insurance tracking system.
The response he receives: “I have spoken to my developer and she stated that we cannot remove the DTNs from Rembrandt, but she can remove the loan numbers, so the documents will not show as matched to those loans.”
According to the e-mails, approval was given to remove the loan numbers from the documents.”
Bank of America denies the assertions. Oh…by the way…BOA has agreed to sell Balboa! I wonder why????!!!!
Bank of America Unit Tried to Hide Foreclosure Information, Hackers Say
BY CHRIS V. NICHOLSON
A hacker organization known as Anonymous released a series of e-mails on Monday provided by a former Bank of America employee who claims they show how a division of the bank sought to hide information on foreclosures.
The bank unit, Balboa Insurance, was acquired by Bank of America when it bought the mortgage lender Countrywide Financial in 2008. Balboa deals in so-called force-placed insurance coverage on mortgages. The e-mail messages concern the removal of information linking loans to other documentation.
A Bank of America spokesman told Reuters on Sunday that the documents had been stolen by a former Balboa employee, and were not tied to foreclosures. “We are confident that his extravagant assertions are untrue,” the spokesman said.
The e-mails dating from November 2010 concern correspondence among Balboa employees in which they discuss taking steps to alter the record about certain documents “that went out in error.” The documents were related to loans by GMAC, a Bank of America client, according to the e-mails.
“The following GMAC DTN’s need to have the images removed from Tracksource/Rembrandt,” an operations team manager at Balboa wrote. DTN refers to document tracking number, and Tracksource/Rembrandt is an insurance tracking system.
The response he receives: “I have spoken to my developer and she stated that we cannot remove the DTNs from Rembrandt, but she can remove the loan numbers, so the documents will not show as matched to those loans.”
According to the e-mails, approval was given to remove the loan numbers from the documents.
A member of Anonymous told DealBook on Monday that the purpose of his Web site was to bring attention to the wrongdoing of banks. “The way the system is, it’s made to cheat the average person,” he said.
He had set up a Web site to post bank data that WikiLeaks has said it would release, and was subsequently contacted this month by the former Balboa employee. It has been speculated that the documents, which have yet to be released, would focus on Bank of America. The spokesman for Anonymous said he had no direct ties to WikiLeaks, which is run by Julian Assange.
Balboa describes itself as providing “mortgage and auto lender-placed insurance tracking services.” Lender-paced insurance is another term for force-placed coverage.
Mortgage lenders require that homes be insured. In the event that mortgage holders let insurance lapse, lenders may take out their own insurance on the property, which protects the lender’s interest but is paid for by the mortgage holder.
Bank of America agreed last month to sell Balboa to QBE of Australia, which is set to pay $700 million up front and take on $1.2 billion in liabilities. A representative of QBE was not immediately available for comment.