Zimmerman Flew and Tyler Knew

A reader points out that it seems unlikely the London Whale losses were not previously approved by Jamie Dimon:

Anyone who works for JPMorgan Chase will promptly admit that NOTHING can occur without going through a multi-approval process or without the clear and explicit consent of LOB and upper-level management.

That said, only a fool would believe Jamie’s statement that JPMC was unaware of the actions of their financial staff who ultimately made poor choices which resulted in what initially was reported internally as a minor loss but rapidly grew to an insurmountable and embarrassing loss.

Chase no help for high school student

A reader writes:

I have a high school checking account. Recently 43 dollars was taken from my account by a “nas-coal”, chase has no idea what this is, but this isn’t even the issue i came to complain about. Chase has put a hold on my account until july 1st, 2014. Do they have the right to seal me off from my hard earned money? Their lines always seem to be busy and their service is horrible. I’m in a predicament. a reply would be appreciated, thanks.

Anyone had this experience?  Any suggestions?

Chase Loss Mitigation Guide

Want to know how Chase handles  customers in arrears?  Someone uploaded Chase’s Loss Mitigation Guide for Prime Collections to Scribd.  Makes you wonder if the have a different guide for subprime borrowers.

Another example of Chase destroying someones life unnecessarily

Posting this on behalf of a reader.  Another example of Chase’s ineptness or downright uncaring attitude royally screwing a customer.  If you got screwed by Chase in a bogus foreclosure, check this out.  They might have to pay you for their mistakes.

146 Stonegate Circle

Just making my payments and planting my flowers

Landscaping improvements

Getting my job done before Chase started harassing me

Finally, Chase may have to compensate the people they screwed

From the Wall Street Journal.

U.S. Sets Rules for Foreclosure Compensation

By ALAN ZIBEL

WASHINGTON—Banks could be forced to pay as much as $125,000 per customer to compensate borrowers who were subject to foreclosure-processing errors.

More than a year after finding widespread abuses in the industry, banking regulators unveiled a plan Thursday to compensate borrowers for a wide variety of errors, including starting foreclosure for a borrower who wasn’t in default, denying loan assistance in error, making a mistake on a loan modification and wrongfully foreclosing on a member of the military.

A foreclosed home on Pine Island in Lee County, Fla., in November 2010.

Banks have set aside vast amounts of money for foreclosure-related liabilities, said banking analyst Nancy Bush at SNL Financial. “This would just be an additional drop in the bucket,” she said.

Many borrowers with foreclosure errors may not see any money. Only about 194,000 of 4.4 million borrowers sent letters last year have requested a review of their cases to date. Separately, independent consultants are doing reviews of about 145,000 consumers’ files.

The compensation plan is separate from a $25 billion foreclosure-abuse settlement that federal and state officials announced earlier this year. That settlement covered the nation’s five largest mortgage-servicing firms: Bank of America Corp., BAC +1.53% Wells Fargo WFC +1.45% & Co., J.P. Morgan Chase JPM +1.35% & Co., Citigroup Inc. C +0.57% and Ally Financial Inc..

The Financial Services Roundtable’s Housing Policy Council, which represents banks subject to the review, called the regulators’ action “an important step toward completion” of the foreclosure review process.

The national servicing settlement includes $1.5 billion in cash payments, or up to $2,000 per borrower, for homeowners who went through foreclosure between September 2008 and December 2011. That was a different approach from bank regulators, who required banks to hire independent consultants who are undertaking a more detailed review of each consumer’s case.

The biggest awards under the rules announced by the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, would be $125,000 per consumer. Those awards would go to consumers who lost their home without defaulting on their mortgage. Banks also must pay that same fine if they violated a federal law preventing foreclosures on the military or foreclosed on a homeowner enrolled in a loan modification plan.

Smaller awards would go to consumers who had other kinds of violations. Consumers whose applications for loan modifications were improperly denied are in line for up to $15,000. Those who were never solicited for loan help as required under federal programs are eligible for up to $1,000.

Borrowers are likely to face a tough burden of proof for the larger awards, said David Dunn, a lawyer who represents banks at law firm Hogan Lovells,

JPMorgan trading loss widens to $3B

More pain for JPMorgan Chase:

The trading losses suffered by JPMorgan Chase have surged in recent days, surpassing the bank’s initial $2 billion estimate by at least $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the losses.

When Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, announced the losses last Thursday, he indicated they could double within the next few quarters. But that process has been compressed into four trading days as hedge funds and other investors take advantage of JPMorgan’s distress, fueling faster deterioration in the underlying credit market positions held by the bank.

A spokeswoman for the bank declined to comment, although Mr. Dimon has said the total paper trading losses will be volatile depending on day-to-day market fluctuations.

The Federal Reserve is examining the scope of the growing losses and the original bet, along with whether JPMorgan’s chief investment office took risks that were inappropriate for a federally insured depository institution, according to several people with knowledge of the examination. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is still under way.

The overall health of the bank remains strong, even with the additional losses, and JPMorgan has been able to increase its stock dividend faster than its rivals because of stronger earnings and a more solid capital buffer.

Read more …

That last paragraph is what gets me.  The company can lose $3B and still be strong.  Why are they complaining so much about lost fee revenue from the new (and reasonable) rules regarding debit cards, automatically enrolling people in debit card overdraft schemes, etc.?  Because they don’t want to give up the free money they are “stealing” from retail banking customers.

Foreclosure settlement money going to plug State budget gaps

The New York Times reports today that about 10% of the foreclosure settlement money being paid by the banks is being siphoned off to plug some state budget deficits.

Needy States Use Housing Aid Cash to Plug Budgets

Hundreds of millions of dollars meant to provide a little relief to the nation’s struggling homeowners is being diverted to plug state budget gaps.

In a budget proposed this week, California joined more than a dozen states that want to help close gaping shortfalls using money paid by the nation’s biggest banks and earmarked for foreclosure prevention, investigations of financial fraud and blunting the ill effects of the housing crisis. California was awarded more than $400 million from the banks, and Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed using the bulk of that sum to pay the state’s debts.

The money was part of a national settlement valued at $25 billion and negotiated with five big banks over abuses in their mortgage and foreclosure processes.

The settlement, reached in February after a year of talks and intervention by the Obama administration, was the second-largest in history involving the states, trailing the tobacco industry settlement, and represented the first large-scale commitment by banks to provide direct aid to borrowers.

As part of the settlement, the banks agreed to pay the states $2.5 billion, money intended to help homeowners and mitigate the effects of the foreclosure surge. But critics complained that this was the only cash the banks were required to pay — the rest comes in the form of “credits” for reducing mortgage debt and other activities. Even that relatively small amount has proved too great a temptation for lawmakers.

Only 27 states have devoted all their funds from the banks to housing programs, according to a report by Enterprise Community Partners, a national affordable housing group. So far about 15 states have said they will use all or most of the money for other purposes.

In Texas, $125 million went straight to the general fund. Missouri will use its $40 million to soften cuts to higher education. Indiana is spending more than half its allotment to pay energy bills for low-income families, while Virginia will use most of its $67 million to help revenue-starved local governments.

Like California, some other states with outsize problems from the housing bust are spending the money for something other than homeowner relief. Georgia, where home prices are still falling, will use its $99 million to lure companies to the state.

“The governor has decided to use the discretionary money for economic development,” said a spokesman for Nathan Deal, Georgia’s governor, a Republican. “He believes that the best way to prevent foreclosures amongst honest homeowners who have experienced hard times is to create jobs here in our state.”

Andy Schneggenburger, the executive director of the Atlanta Housing Association of Neighborhood-Based Developers, said the decision showed “a real lack of comprehension of the depths of the foreclosure problem.”

The $2.5 billion was intended to be under the control of the state attorneys general, who negotiated the settlement with the five banks — Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Ally. But there is enough wiggle room in the agreement, as well as in separate terms agreed to by each state, to give legislatures and governors wide latitude. The money can, for example, be counted as a “civil penalty” won by the state, and some leaders have argued that states are entitled to the money because the housing crash decimated tax collections.

Read more …

Simply distasteful.

Dimon’s incomprehensible answer to the $2B loss

Huh?

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