Robo Cop vs Robo Signer

Cover of Robocop

Having a job in mortgage is at once, a blessing and a curse.  We are blessed to finally have paychecks after so many, many months of interview explanations of our mortgage past to companies who didn’t have a clue what we were talking about but considered us all to be felons. Finally, a job in mortgage lending opens up.  Working back in the industry should be a huge blessing but it is far less pleasant than it used to be – and that is the curse.  The bad press and the realization that some people along the way in real estate lending murdered our industry.  It just isn’t fun any more.

Maybe it never was.  Maybe now we see it for what it was – gluttony and mayhem.  A mortgage friend, Kelli, said recently referring to the 2005-2007 periods in mortgaging “Our industry should have been taking appetite suppressants.”  Some of those Fat Cats, for sure!

The urge for denial is very strong.  Denial of any wrong doing or of any involvement in sub-standard loans.  It is tempting to try to simply toss out the idea that we played any role at all.  It was Wall Street! Borrowers lied! Jimmy Carter started the CRE program!  The blame game costumes us in cloaks of quality floating above it all.

But slowly it is dawning on us.  As we realize that even today, after all the problems that were created, it is us as an industry who still sends Robo Signers to clean up the foreclosure mess with a dirty sponge.  Surprising, isn’t it, how long it has taken us to realize we may have a deep seeded industry problem?

When I first heard the term Robo Signer I had no idea what it was or what the people actually did.  Then, splashed on the pages of the Washington Post was a Robo Signer’s signature on documents that verified her name was used to certify foreclosure documents.  The certification is to affirm that foreclosure loan papers were accounted for, accurate, and reviewed for soundness. This one person’s name signed as a representative of several large lenders but the Washington Post article states she was an employee of a service company.  The service company denies knowing anything about this because a manager had authorized the signing.  Each signature appeared to be signed by a different hand.  The questions abound!

Were these documents actually reviewed at all?

By whom?

Is the signature on these documents legal?

Did the home owners at the time erroneously loose their homes?

Have these homes been re-sold in bank-owned sales?

What in the system failed us?

And the big one:  What do we do now?

Maybe we do need Robo Cop to pay us a visit.  Maybe he can clean up the mean streets of the mortgage industry. All the recent Federal regulations certainly have not.  Mention of ‘ethics clean up’ in financial publications for the last few months has not.  Licensing and certifications have not.

Converting this painful period in our history into something good requires all the discernment we can rally as individuals (don’t sign documents with a name that isn’t yours or as a rep for a company you do not work for, or attesting that you reviewed docs you never saw) and as companies (don’t allow a breeding ground for fraudulent activity in your organization).

This may be the worst of the curse.  It may soon be past us.  But, just in case, does anyone have Robo Cop’s number?

Note: People have asked where to leave a comment: right below this sentence in the light wording there is ‘leave a comment’.  Click on it.  Tell me what you think of this subject.

Related Articles

• Robo-signers (schott.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Foreclosure Crisis: ‘Robo-Signers’ Blamed (abcnews.go.com)