Lesson 4: My Life Lesson’s in the World of Mortgage Fraud

I spent the past thirty years of my life, standing on the right side of the law, only to watch the law for the past ten years, support the criminal activities of the country’s banks by ignoring the very laws that governs these types of cases.  I have spent the better part of a decade fighting an outrageous case of bank fraud, being committed by entities of “public trust”, whose crimes, if committed by myself, would have found me incarcerated and broke for the rest of my life.  Instead it would be my husband and I that would be enslaved both mentally and financially, as these white-collared criminals worked their illegal magic on our documents in an attempt to convince the courts of their ownership in our property.

I was not always a good girl, however, after I had children I started to realize that I was a reflection on them; what they saw or heard me do would determine what type of human beings they were ultimately going to be.  Being a person that has always held strong in my belief in God, I had to depend on him to drag me out of the pit that a “not so pretty” childhood would put me in; and I have had to depend on him in so many situations in my life.  He would guide me through drug abuse; the sexual abuse of my child (which made me ultimately have to deal with my own demons from my past); and betrayals.  I have worked hard on myself to become a good parent (failing at times); a good wife and an overall good and decent human being.  All of these experiences would lead me to the place that I am today; a sound-minded, logical thinking woman who believes that we all should live honorably and with gratitude, showing kindness to the world and being ethical in all dealings.  We are all made up of what we were; and I made the decision that all the bad that had occurred in my life would not define my life.  Over the past ten years, my faith has been strengthened and the facts that I believed to be true about our society and the entities that control it have been severely challenged.

I would take a messed up youth and turn it around; becoming a contributing member of my community, as well as a wife to a wonderful man and respectable and descent mother to my children; with a plan for life.  In the blink of an eye our lives would be changed; one year would send all of these plans into a tailspin that I am still, to this day, trying to recover from.  That would not have been the case had I not had to deal with a bank deciding that it was alright to commit worse frauds than their predecessors, in a long drawn out judicial horror show.

I have learned that the word “public trust”, like the word “love” gets thrown out there a lot; however, many times that is all that it is, words.  I never envisioned “public trust” meaning stealing people’s property through fraud, forgery and document manipulations; just as I never envisioned “love” meaning beating up someone you claim to care for.

I have learned that in order to keep your sanity while this is happening in your life requires God.  Finding peace when you are fighting someone who, through unlimited funding can wreak such havoc on your lives is hard enough.  It gets even harder when you realize that they are doing it criminally; all while convincing the world that you are the ones trying to cheat this poor entity of “unearned trust.”

I have learned that you can’t just tell the world about it in words, because for some unfathomable reason, it doesn’t get the message across; so you find yourself creating pretty little pictures in order to put the fraud in some meaningful and discernible order.  It would take me eighty-five hours to figure out the fraud that happened in our case; hours staring at documents where I knew something was amiss, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  Then, after a very meaningful prayer to God; would have it all revealed to me within a matter of hours.

I have learned to be patient, because this past ten years has been nothing but a waiting game”

• Waiting to see if we were going to lose the roof over our head;
• Waiting on motion, after motion, after motion….after motion, after motion, that seven attorneys’ hurled at our attorney to keep him blinded to what they were doing;
• Waiting to see if we were going to be able to find legal representation for the second half of this journey, the note;
• Waiting to see if the roof was going to collapse on us while fighting for insurance proceeds that this bank (whom never had any standing) held the funds up for a year until ordered to turn it over; still not turning it over and ultimately having to get the insurance company to issue a new one;
• Waiting for attorney’s to understand the crimes that you have uncovered; only to realize that all that you said and all that you did, fell on deaf ears.

For me, it has taught me a valuable lesson.  Get used to it.  You can’t go faster than the guy ahead of you; you can’t make a day go any faster than it’s going to go; and you can’t spot this kind of fraud in a day.  If anyone thinks that staring at the same set of documents for seven days straight is a picnic, I’m here to tell you it isn’t; however, that patience and determination are what made the frauds come to light, so I now know the value of “patience is a virtue.”

I have learned that if you want something done right you need to do it yourself.  Don’t expect anyone to value your life or your beliefs more than you.  Most don’t care and those that actually do care don’t know what to do.  Stand firm in your faith that God will do as he has promised, even though it may not seem like it at times; and follow your conscience.  A truly good person will know the right thing to do when the time is right because, that drive you feel is God’s whisper; listen to it.

I have learned that anger gets you nowhere because people will tune you out.  Rage will leave you weak and defeated; a worthless emotion as well.  The courts, especially, are not into all the rage and anger and some lawyers, almost seem to be lacking a soul.  I have learned to keep my emotions in check; realizing that anger and rage cloud your mind; making you a stuttering and babbling fool when you are trying to get the point across.  It’s not how hard you pound your fists on the table; it’s how quietly you think.  You can’t think if your mind is screaming.

I have learned that it is smarter to investigate than to assume; however, that is not the impression that I am left with when it comes to what our legal system believes.  Because if our courts didn’t assume that banks were honorable in their dealings, there wouldn’t be homeowners across this country losing their homes to un-endorsed, forged, altered and manipulated notes, assignments and mortgages.  The courts assumption, when a bank throws a stack of documents their way, is that these banks are entities of “public trust” being represented by honorable “officers of the court”; not once considering that they, the banks’ legal representatives, may not be presenting exactly what is conveyed to be, or perceived to be, by a non-investigative court system.  In my world, the banks have lost the privilege to be considered entities of “public” or any other kind of trust.

I have learned that, in many places, politics is an asinine game that pits one idiot against another; but actually achieves very little.  Because truly, if it did, we wouldn’t be sitting here eight years after the collapse of the mortgage industry to find that these banks and their lawyers are still doing all of the same underhanded things they did before, but now with the courts blessings on documents that aren’t worth as much as the sand on your feet.

I am now taking to task those that have chosen us to be their victims for the past ten years.  I have presented the right questions and the right evidence to the right people who should be able to get the job done; because going the “normal” route has been a lesson in futility.  Fraud is fraud and it will never be acceptable to me and it should never be acceptable in any courtroom in this country.  I, unlike many of the mortgage fraud victims out there, still have the fight left in me.  This is a beat down game by the banks and their nicely paid lawyers for too long and I have broad shoulders; game on.

I have learned that I don’t have to be angry, because anger clouds your vision.  I have learned to look around me and know what I should be grateful for in my life.  When my eyes open in the mornings, the first words out of my mouth are “Thank you Lord”, for allowing me to breathe another breath and to have the strength to ensure that justice will be served to those that thought they were ever so smart when they came up with this little scheme and ensure that they will legally pay for the crimes that they have committed.

I will not spend days doing this, as for the past ten years I have been diligent in my organizational skills.  I would only discovered the banks and their legal representatives’ crimes over the past year; however, while I was discovering it, I was also organizing it.  I diligently put all of the evidence in one nice neat little package and have sent it on its’ merry way, to ignite some fires.  I will now spend my days concentrating on things that matter, because, I did what I had to do in my typical “over the top” fashion and now it’s time for our higher ups to figure it out and put a stop to it, with me nipping at their ankles every day or two until someone figures it out.

I have learned that you don’t give up the fight because it gets tough; and you especially don’t give up the fight when you know that others will be victimized too, and you may have the power to stop it.  When crimes like what has occurred to us are allowed without question because the game is too tough, or in the words of one attorney,”…it doesn’t fit into the budget”, then we deserve what we get.  When the right thing is to stand up for what is right, that is what you have to do.  It’s easy to give up; however I don’t feel that this is an option in my case.  We have grandchildren and enjoy the idea of those grandchildren being able to purchase a home for their families’ one day, without fear of going through what we have been subjected to.  Then again, if we don’t see this fight through there may not be any homes available to buy by the time they are old enough to make that decision.