The types of folks who tend to gravitate toward tea party beliefs have consistently believed the housing crisis was the fault of people not paying their mortgage payments. Indeed, the name "tea party" came from a CNBC analyst's screed that there should be a tea party against "losers' mortgages." Regular people don't want to believe that there have been predatory lending companies who feed on homeowners, particularly those with poorer credit, and go to great lengths to concoct reasons to charge extra fees and threaten homeowners with foreclosure.
The story linked below shows this behavior is still going on. New York state regulators and a group of homeowners charge that Ocwen Financial "has been charging marked-up and illegal fees as well as engaging in deceptive business practices." Ocwen is one of the country's largest mortgage servicers. Regulators and homeowners involved in a class-action lawsuit say that Ocwen has found reasons (read: excuses) to charge extra, sometimes illegal, fees for small issues. One couple mentioned in the story borrowed $98,000 and now owes $150,000 after making payments for ten years due to the fees.
The blame-the-victim mentality of many people allows this kind of phenomenon to exist, blunting any movement to put pressure on Congress to crack down on predators because, after all, it's just a bunch of losers trying to get something for nothing.
http://www.npr.org/2014/11/18/364131391/firm-accused-of-illegal-practices-that-push-families-into-foreclosure
The story linked below shows this behavior is still going on. New York state regulators and a group of homeowners charge that Ocwen Financial "has been charging marked-up and illegal fees as well as engaging in deceptive business practices." Ocwen is one of the country's largest mortgage servicers. Regulators and homeowners involved in a class-action lawsuit say that Ocwen has found reasons (read: excuses) to charge extra, sometimes illegal, fees for small issues. One couple mentioned in the story borrowed $98,000 and now owes $150,000 after making payments for ten years due to the fees.
The blame-the-victim mentality of many people allows this kind of phenomenon to exist, blunting any movement to put pressure on Congress to crack down on predators because, after all, it's just a bunch of losers trying to get something for nothing.
http://www.npr.org/2014/11/18/364131391/firm-accused-of-illegal-practices-that-push-families-into-foreclosure
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