Slashdot Mirror
Anonymous Leaks Internal Bank of America Emails
euphemistic writes "Reportedly the information Wikileaks was set to disclose about a particular bank back from December, 'a massive batch of internal Bank of America emails' has been leaked. While the site hosting it seems to currently be down due to the obviously gigantic amount of traffic interested in this leak, the leak is said to pertain to the Bank of America's improper foreclosure on homes. 'The report came from a former employee with Balboa Insurance — a risk management and insurance firm. The employee reportedly corresponded with Bank of America employees and was told to falsify loan numbers on documents to force Bank of America to foreclose on homeowners.'"
I guess this explains why Bank of America's law firm was so willing to buy into HBgary and other's bullshit about being able to take down Anoynymous and Wikileaks.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
.. nothing will happen.
Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
and switching to a more reputable corporate behemoth like... hrmm... like... uhhh... doh!
Having a bookmark to Google does not make you an expert on everything.
Reportedly the information Wikileaks was set to disclose about a particular bank back from December, "a massive batch of internal Bank of America emails" has been leaked.
Is this saying that Wikileaks' information was leaked by a third party?
As for bank foreclosure fraud, we've known for a year or more that banks have been doing that. A common case is that all the shady asset-juggling left things in a state that no one knows who actually has the rights to it, so the evictions are rushed through without proper legal scrutiny, or even on the basis of forged documents.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If there is any connection with this to the women being shot and killed a few hours ago at Bank of America, I would had to see that connection not be made.
Simple Google News search will get you the links.
And here is a better link than the one posted (provides screenshots and better context of th conversation):
http://bankofamericasuck.com/03/13/ex-bank-of-ameica-employee-can-prove-mortgage-fraud-part-1
how they are doing!
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/nasdaqlastsale.aspx?symbol=BAC&selected=BAC
We've seen too many times over in the last decade (or three) that these powerful interests are pretty darn immune. Now and then someone high up either pisses off the rest, or is thrown under the bus and the perception of justice is maintained, thus muting the pitchforks long enough to snub any momentum. Sadly these guys could be found shooting orphaned kids to clear out foreclosed houses and they'd still get away with blaming it on "paperwork" or some such BS.
So, yeah, great, another treasure trove reminding me just how rigged our "free" society is, and another false circus to watch work through the worthless media system. More depression. More pointlessness. Take your loaf of bread home and feign thankfulness that the power elite have let you eat for another day.
From reading batch #1 of the e-mails, it seems that a batch of letters were sent out in error and the company did not want those letters being linked to the loans. Of course the e-mails don't mention enough details. but it sure sounds like the insurrance company sent out a hundred letters claiming that homeowners didn't have insurance, and threatening to impose forced placement insurance (Balboa's business). Then Balboa realized it was in error and asked BofA to remove the incorrect letters from the loan files so that BofA employees wouldn't get confused and think that the homeowners had loan problems.
Its misguided and a dumb idea, but not some great criminal conspiracy. The rest of the Wikileaks post is a polemic against the american banking system, which shows that they have no real interest in outing fraud and corruption, but merely want to be an annoyance to hurt the bankers.
Read the Market Ticker. Seriously. It is probably the most insightful site I've seen on the scope of the fraud being waged against the American public. In particular, note the number of times Bank of America or "Bank of America employees" get referenced in behavior that sounds more like it should be happening in Zimbabwe than the US.
Wikileaks is sitting on all sorts of good stuff about Russia. Why does Assange not release that?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The governement administration was pretty quick to hand them money to keep going and the oversight seems to be uninterested in putting people in jail.
If you pickpocket a $100 store item expect to go to jail. If you force thousands into bankruptcy and put several nations into financial stress you will have no problem collecting your yearly bonus pay.
It seems to me we need a crack down on white collar crime.
Stop jailing people for grams of pot and start jailing people for ((( some smart saying I can't think of that means investment people who steal money))).
That there will be a bit of noise from the rabble about this but after a week, this will be gone and nothing would be done about it.
Such is the way the system works, throw enough money at something and it will go away.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Sites are going up and down right now due to traffic I think. I read the emails here: http://www.it-networks.org/2011/03/14/blackmonday-ex-bank-of-america-employee-can-prove-mortgage-fraud-part-1/ though there are no doubt alot more mirrors available.
I'm just waiting for the "Damage Control Fee" to show up on my next month's statement. Then I'll have to pay an "Account Closure Fee" as well as a "Don't Let Your Ass Hit The Door On The Way Out Fee".
Members of the Senate Finance Committee will hem and haw and grandstand.
BOA will make some lamo PR statements from the spawn of Satan that PR and Marketing people are.
BOA will then make some "campaign" contributions to the Senators and after a few weeks, the public will have forgotten it all because the powers that be will come up with some distraction issue. A distraction issue is something that really isn't important to this country's well being: going after Muslims (Sen .King), security, non-existent terrorism threats ("possible threats as they call them"), and if everything else fails, bring up some sort of abortion issue or religion issue. Abortion is a great way to distract the hoi paloi.
People are stupid.
Herro! Dis is Shitty Bank! Do you want to open a shitty bank account?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Let me know how that works for you. Especially when you go to pick up groceries. Or pay your electric bill.
I've been a BoA customer for about 15 years and they've never done me wrong in any way at all. I've recently paid off a car loan thru them, and only have about $2K debt on a BoA credit card account, which I'll be able to pay off to zero once I get my income tax refund. Maybe it's time for me to leave them as soon as the CC is paid off... because I don't like supporting anyone with my business, when their integrity is under such increasingly serious questionability and doubt.
I've also held savings and checking accounts in a local credit union for many years, and currently have a boat financed thru the credit union.
About the only thing that's been keeping me from completely closing down my business with BoA has been that BoA has a pretty nice online banking system that I use a lot, and my local credit union has provided almost zilch with their minimalistic online banking website, but they've recently switched to a new provider... all their online banking stuff is outsourced since they're too small to even have an IT department, and since the new provider is one who only does online banking websites for numerous CUs and S&Ls across the nation as their sole business, I'm hoping the new website will be a lot more robust, secure and usable.
Also the girls who work in my CU are frequently losing or misplacing correspondence (happened twice with me in the past 4 months) , which does worry me a bit, so I'll have to keep a close eye out for that.
If your local credit union is the only one, then find another one that you're eligible for which is a member of shared branching. That way you can use your credit union anywhere. My credit union BMI is a member, and I haven't been to a BMI branch in years. Oh yeah 9% interest on my credit card, and they said "don't worry about it" for my credit card payments when I deployed to Iraq. No late fees, no interest, just called once a week until I got home.
The corruption in the "market" economy (which it isn't) is making me turn more and more to the grey market economy. Bartering and selling goods and services for other needed goods and services with out using conventional financial channels, e.g. bank accounts and credit cards. Cut out the middle man and get off of the grid.Kkeep your "seed money" under the mattress. The mattress is a much safer place than putting into the hands of those thieves.
I also have run into some small businesses which are refusing to accept credit cards now. The theives at the CC companies not only charge obscene amounts of interest but also charge obscene fees to the merchants for each sale. By cutting out the banks the small businesses actually gain an edge over larger businesses by keeping costs low.
For the Revolution!
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
It's not a problem of what the currency is based on. It's an inherent problem of capitalism itself.
As someone who has worked for a big bank, I can assure you that while there are pockets of AMAZINGLY retarded people that commit blatant fraud, it is mostly just a large group of MOSTLY retarded people committing fraud and not really recognizing that's what they're doing.
I worked hand in hand with the foreclosure group and I think I can summarize what's really been happening:
1) Overwhelming Workload + Incompetent Staff = Mistakes
a) Leads to massive spike in hiring through temporary agencies and the introduction of a much larger group of incompetent people into the process.
2) Convoluted, counterproductive processes + people who can't use excel spreadsheets = Mistakes
a) See 1a
3) Incentive Structure - This one's a bit harder but most banks use production based incentive structures to pay employees beyond their base pay. The more work you do, the more money you make. If it's easier to get rid of a "file" (troubled loan) by tossing it to the foreclosure group and having it roll through that process than it is to help someone save their house, guess what happens. If it takes you an hour to successfully help someone (which it doesn't, it takes days or weeks) or 10 minutes to move their file to foreclosure and therefore out of your stack, and you get paid based on how many files you move out of your stack, guess where all your files go.
4) Banks DONT LIKE TO RESCIND SALES. It costs them money.
To me, this is all SUPER old news. I watched this happen in real time for years and the news was always WAY behind on what was happening and WHY. It's not as simple as "banks are greedy and committing fraud/crime." That's certainly a part of it, but not nearly half of it. Realistically it's "There's too much work to do and the people doing it truly don't understand what they're doing"
It's way easier to recognize what's really happening when you look at how things are done at the bottom. Listening to CEOs and PR reps is a waste of time, they have no idea what's really going on underneath them.
The problems we have always faced are the result of incompetence, period. More to the point the problem is people.
I can't help but wonder who's really behind this leak. It smells a LOT like a false flag operation.
Bank of America has known for months that they're the next major Wikileaks target. Now all of a sudden the material pops up "from Anonymous", in the middle of the Japan earthquake, a HUGE news story - and over the weekend. I tried viewing the site all morning and have been getting 503 errors. If you wanted to bury an inevitable major embarrassment to your company, I think this is how you do it. Wikileaks, for all their faults, would never release this while there were so many other major developing stories.
Well, obviously this is going to lead to a dip in BoA stocks, so how can we make a profit?
Your comment about "this period of history" draws attention away from the fact that the U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt. Few in government are on the side of the people. Most of the really powerful in the U.S. government are helping the corrupters.
For example, see the Rolling Stone article about Goldman Sachs, The Great American Bubble Machine
The documentary movie Inside Job was nominated for an Oscar. It's an excellent movie about the extreme corruption. NOTHING has been done.
The top men know exactly what's going on. They have set up the system to be filled with incompetence and overwork because that enables them to get away with defrauding billions from millions.
The system is broken by design.
May the Maths Be with you!
For some reason the torrent on TPB was marked as fake and taken down. Get it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?9gig97gio0g3b7b
Download and seed!
Looking through the emails, I really can't find the so called damning evidence.
Are we just taking Anonymous/Wikileaks for their word now? Whatever they say goes?
And are we just as quick to distrust and denounce the institution we've entrusted with the largest share of our financial security?
There's irony here Shakespeare would be proud of.
I'm not going cry foul until I see something truly incriminating. Which may very well exist...but I haven't seen it.
http://www.mediafire.com/?9gig97gio0g3b7b
Sorry to reply off-topic, but I want to post this as high up as possible:
http://www.mediafire.com/?9gig97gio0g3b7b
Here is the torrent file. BoA seems to be sockpuppet-rushing TPB to mark the torrents as fake.
...prolific...
I believe you mean they are "ubiquitous".
Provided that he indeed was the source of the leaked material, and it seems likely he was, this is NOT whistle blowing. That would be releasing a specific set of documents relevant to what you are blowing the whistle on. He released everything he got his hands on. Please note some of it is shit like what US diplomats think of foreign leaders. That is nothing that is of any public interest, nor in the slightest illegal/immoral/etc.
Now regardless, he broke the law. Please remember military law is a little different from civilian law. Regardless it is illegal to disseminate classified information you are given access to.
In a case of legit whistle blowing, then perhaps that is a mitigating circumstance (though the UCMJ doesn't really seem to provide an exception, perhaps it should but it doesn't) but in this case no. It was a leak of whatever he could get, without regard for value or harm. That really removes any moral high ground argument.
Stop this protesting wherever you stand and start protesting in front of the houses of senators and CEO's. You want to put the fear of God into someone, protest right at there gate. Maybe even stir up a little violence. Honestly, if you aren't willing to go to jail for your believes, your words will never go anywhere...
WTF Slashdot, why do I have to login 50 times to post?
My Mortgage is with them now. Not by choice but they bought the mortgage, from somebody who bought the mortgage etc. Now I have to deal with these ass clowns and oh yeah, they've been trying to pull shit. That's why I have a lawyer and one more step out of line and I'll drag their collective asses into court.
It's time for people to start standing up to these idiots and show them for the true fucktards they really are.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
But I find him no more, and perhaps less, a credible source than the banks. That site is written by Karl Denninger, who is a Tea Partier and Glenn Beck fan. Ok fine, but that does not speak to someone who is very balanced on the issues. That is a hardcore "Gold standard is the ONLY standard," kind of individual and not someone who has a good understanding of the complexities of finance and a balanced view (the phrase "bleeding heart liberals" is a favourite).
We knew all about this last year. It was on the front page of every paper and the lead story on the TV news. Unless the emails in question were written after October 2010, is there anything new?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39575033/ns/business-real_estate/
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
If your local credit union is the only one, then find another one that you're eligible for which is a member of shared branching. That way you can use your credit union anywhere. My credit union BMI is a member, and I haven't been to a BMI branch in years. Oh yeah 9% interest on my credit card, and they said "don't worry about it" for my credit card payments when I deployed to Iraq. No late fees, no interest, just called once a week until I got home.
My credit union story isn't quite as awesome as yours, but it's along the same vein -- when an extended warranty company refused to refund the "refundable" policy I'd bought through my credit union on financing my car, the CU refunded the cost of the policy out of their own pocket even though the fine print explicitly protected them from needing to do so.
They've also been able to bend policy on a few occasions (ie. allowing that car loan slightly below their usual minimum down payment). It's great dealing with people who are empowered rather than faceless corporate drones.
I thought it sort of interesting that if you look at the list of Billionaires:
http://www.forbes.com/wealth/billionaires#p_1_s_arank_-1__-1
and look at where they got their money from.
If you look at the USA, and ignore all the Walmart jerks, and software bubbles, a disproportionate amount got their money from "Hedge Funds". Now look around the world, how many others can you find? I think I found one.
These are the same Hedge Funds that bought up (and demanded, and got) all the US real estate debt, causing the whole economic problem. I wonder how many of those guys are hurting? Oh wait, none because they are all billionaires. Also if you look at the names... its the exact same people that came up with the bail out plan etc... talk about conflict of interest and self serving SOB's.
I don't know what's in those leaked e-mails, but this item is just as big - and scandalous,
"GE isn't the only "Top 5" company on this year's Fortune 500 list that owed no income taxes. Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), which suffered major losses in 2009, included a tax benefit of $1.9 billion in its annual profit."
http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/16/news/companies/ge_7000_tax_returns/
I already know this is going to get modded into oblivion, but when my bank was bought out by PNC, I originally grimaced and waited for the hammer to come down and suck up all the money in my accounts there. (As opposed to, say, actually doing something about it.)
So far, they're actually an improvement over the old bank management and remind me quite a bit of when Merchants was the local bank.
Please, please don't go down the road that BoA and their ilk has, PNC!
I went and read his first semi-incoherent rant about gun control and Obama. That was enough for me.
Also anyone who thinks you can hold the currency perfectly level doesn't understand how it works, or know history. Currency has never been perfectly stable and never will be. You can have it somewhat stable over the long term, at the expense of a lot more short term swings (that was how it used to be), but you can't have it dead level all the time.
If people in the corporation commit a crime, they can be charged individually. Just so you know.
http://www.mediafire.com/?9gig97gio0g3b7b
According to what I've read, this was the work of just a few months ago. This does not seem to be the "large back" leak mentioned a while back. That was largely seen as the reason for the domain buying.
So I would reserve judgement at this point. It's unlikely that they would start this practice a few months ago, and simultaneously protect themselves against repercussions of what they are doing. Well, actually that would make sense if a large bank leak had not already been announced.
"Because a man with a briefcase can steal more money than any man with a gun." -- Gimme What You've Got
Doesn't mean he understood how it all works. There is no requirement to be a big stock trader other than to either have a bunch of money or to have people willing to give you money.
I had an economics professor back in university who had never traded in any large amounts of stocks, yet I would say he knew far, far more about how the markets work. No he hadn't "been there" but he sure had done a lot of research.
If people in the corporation commit a crime, they can
theoretically
be charged individually. Just so you know.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Since a foreclosure proceeding is a court action, falsifying documentation is illegal. Coercing others to falsify court documents is (I belive) suborning perjury.
Can be, but in practice, aren't. The corporation buys lawyers for all (mainly to protect those at the top), no one says anything, and no one ever proves who actually did what or who knew what when. And rather than charging them all as a criminal organization under RICO, they just let them get away with it.
Learn to love Alaska
My grandpa (who lived through the Depression) always used to say it was better to buy gold and bury it in your backyard than to put your money in a bank. And to think we used to laugh at him.
Yeah, because gold is like buying a house. The price can only go up.
:-) With a savings account you can turn in his SSN to the state to find lost/forgotten/abandoned accounts.
Track the price of gold over grandpa's lifetime. Now track an interest bearing savings account over the same period, make sure to to include *** compounding interest ***. Do the same for 1980 (wan't that a huge peak followed by a crash) to today. Claiming that gold is a big win is all about cherry picking the day you buy and the day you sell. Compounding interest is far more reliable.
Most important of all, is grandpa leaving a map to his backyard?
Since this would touch the company's financial statements and fraudulently affect the profitability of a publicly traded company wouldn't this be a SOX violation and make the executive staff criminally liable?
The top men know exactly what's going on. They have set up the system to be filled with incompetence and overwork because that enables them to get away with defrauding billions from millions.
The system is broken by design.
Exactly! They implement these massively complicated rule structures on top of everything else and don't even let the officers read it before they vote on it. They're like "Well we have to pass it to know what's in it!".
Wait. What were we talking about?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Technically, isn't the USA a republic rather than a democracy?
Mind you I am splitting hairs a bit and would be interested if somebody could give me a summary on what the difference is... (I know, I should probably just look up wikipedia...)
In light of email leaks and similar stories in the media, I wish there was more coverage how to prevent such leaks in the first place. I recommend services that offer encrypted email services like Hushmail and CryptoHeaven. Hushmail http://www.hushmail.com/ for its browser accessible web interface and CryptoHeaven http://www.cryptoheaven.com/secure-email-hosting.htm because of the transparent encryption for email and files which anyone can use with ease.
It would help Anonymous' professional reputation if they also uploaded the leak to the BitTorrent network... Then we wouldn't have to deal with the good old HTTP/1.1 Service Unavailable status code while someone leaches the data from the their site.
They don't actually have to know what is going on. The market has a natural emerging behavior. The CEO can muck around and just settle at the structure that turns them the highest profit, other companies can detect that higher profit and copy them, or hire the CEO to an even higher salary.
It is hard to imagine the CEOs don't have _any_ clue of what is going on, but they could also just be closing their eyes, because keeping them closed is the most profitable, and the managers successfully keeping them closed are the most likely to be promoted.
I do however find it highly unlikely anyone in that kind of position is smart enough to setup the system in the first place, it makes much more sense to be emerging naturally.
I already ditched Bank of America for CapitalOne months ago after a series of added fees where there weren't fees and cancellations of services I needed (such as the ability to withdraw money from CCB ATMs in China for free). So far CapitalOne rocks in almost every way.
I post this on every bank related thing. Always relevant.
If you've had enough of banks do what you can to avoid them, including cash if possible.
-trade
-p2p currency like bitcoin
-credit unions
-p2p lending like zopa
-a few timedollars and a few local exchange credits can't harm
The journey of a thousand steps starts with the first
Every "manager" and up typically gets free legal representation by the Corporation's lawyers.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
...and now it's the banks backyard.
While it's good that this was leaked on a Monday, choosing to release explosive documents (assumed) while Japan is facing a possible nuclear meltdown and one of the worst human crisis since the quake & tsunami in Indonesia, it will be lucky to make even a footnote on the national news.
This should have been released back in December, shame on Assange and Wikileaks for holding information like this for their own political and personal gain. IF this is the same batch of documents on BofA, stalling has made it a complete waste.
- tensions in our lives that are attacking our minds, unite themselves together to make our consciousness blind - op'ivy
There was a time when income tax was on corporations only. Technically, there's no US law that says individuals must pay US federal taxes.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
CxO level and directors generally have business insurance (often paid by the corporation) that protects them personally. When the issue at hand should fall on a CxO or director, then the corporation generally foots the bill for all to protect them. The policies for middle management and below depends greatly on the corporation. But the protections for the top are always there.
Learn to love Alaska
John Lewis in the UK is another type of organization that treats its employees very well in my opinion. And they do employ professions of all types, including programmers and other technical types.
Hello! What is this?! I responded to "whistleblower defense isn't going to fly [in court]" with something OBAMA'S OWN ADMINISTRATION speaker had concerns with: Bradley Manning's treatment now would affect the court case later [if he's ever able to stand trial].
I called it torture, and I'm not alone. Even the UN is investigating the government's treatment of Bradley Manning. Likewise, several journalists have taken Manning's treatment to task and called it 'torture' (Will Bunch, Daniel Ellsberg... the numbers are building). And [finally!] a congressman likened Manning's treatment to Abu Ghraib.
As for Manning's ability to stand trial, after being in solitary confinement for 8 mos+, and stripped naked at night most recently (ostensibly because he's a 'suicide threat' but doesn't qualify for a mental evaluation), Manning's reportedly catatonic — not fit for trial. That's FLAMEBAIT?! Hell no — at worst, it's "Off topic", but then again, so is this whole part of the thread.
0 peers.
nothing happens.
i have had a website up about the 'toxic debt' for 6+ months. it gives details of CDOs.
it has almost no visitors. 100 hits a day, mostly big banks and lawyers and the government trolling google looking for specific doodas for some reason they are stuck with researching.
now, is that the users fault? or is it my fault, for not making my site good enough? i dont mean good like huffington post, i mean good like digging enough dirt out before i find something.
(actually i did find some things but i couldnt post them, because.. its a long story. . . )
anyways, if my site had been successfull i could have quit my job and done more of it. instead i am pretty much about to shut the site down.
should i blame the public? i dont think so, i used to be a 'stupid public' before i heard a radio show that approached the story from an angle i could understand.
i hate to be sour grapes, but all these 'boycott BOA' calls are just about like boycotting Shell stations and thinking that it matters. the Oil all gets mixed together at the refinery, and money all gets mixed together in the back office of financial institutions. it doesnt matter if it is a small Gasoline shop in downtown, springfield, america, or a small bank across the street from it. the same principle applies.
the actual 'owners' of your mortgage might be thousands of people all over the planet.
the BoA might just be the 'servicers'.
http://blogs.hbr.org/fox/2010/06/maybe-shareholders-were-to-bla.html
Hands in the cookie jar and all that... BOA mastered the art of manipulating debit card charges to insure that the maximum amount of overdraft charges were assessed to you. Instead of recording your transactions in real time, they waited until 8 pm EST to do their math. Let's say you had 210.00 dollars in your account that day, but mistakenly charged 225.00 in multiple transactions, they would debit the largest charges first allowing many of the smaller ones to put you over. @ 35.00 for each overdraft, BOA made billions, thus satisfying stockholders with easy and massive profit. Sure Wells Fargo and BOA were busted for it and there was a lot of noise from the Gubment about civil and federal charges but in the end, the story died. This leak about this particular issue isn't a surprise. BOA is a greasy bunch. Along with the Congressmen that protect them.
Windows assumes you are an idiot...Linux demands proof.