I’m still kind of reeling about the attitude of that bank President who has basically just decided to lawyer up and screw the person his company robbed. Not only is he a total douche canoe, but he has written a piece justifying their actions and basically acting like the bank is getting an unfair rap in the press. Seriously, read this statement (via food goddess TaMara).
Why is this so hard? If I were this bank President, the last damned thing I would do is lawyer up and kill public opinion towards my bank. And here is the deal, it doesn’t even matter if the list of damages and losses of property Katie Barnett billed them for is accurate or inflated. It simply doesn’t. My attitude would be my bank fucked up, and I would work to fix it.
I mean, I’m sure they spend tens of thousands on advertising every year, but no amount of happy fun ads about how swell your bank is can deal with or cover up what you did here. If I were the bank President, I’d call a meeting, and it would be short. I’d say, we screwed up, and not only are we going to replace her possessions, but we are going to meet with her, send her on another two week expense paid vacation with friends, and when she comes back, her house would be re-painted to make sure there are no marks from us stealing her furniture and possessions, her floors would be redone in case we scratched anything, we’d check her roof and gutters, re-do her front yard, paint the outside of the house, and when she comes home, have the media there to see her arrive to a big sign that says “We’re sorry, the First National Bank of Wellston” and turn it into one of those ABC home remodeling shows that are so popular.
You could do that for 50k, easily. And it would have far more of an impact than the late night shitty commercials you spend tens of thousands on on local cable channels. You’d be doing the right thing, and yes, it would cost more than the 18 grand she is asking for, but it is a drop in the bucket compared to the lawyer fees and the outcome of civil litigation, and not only that, you would create more good will than any fucking toaster oven or free checking accounts could ever make.
The problem with corporate America is that there just aren’t any creative thinkers any more- unless the creativity is applied to screwing the consumers. But this isn’t rocket science. I’ve never had a PR class. Jesus.
In the future, scholars studying the collapse of the American empire will be able to track a direct route back to lawyers and MBA’s.
NOT TO FUCKING MENTION THAT THE NEW HEAD OF THE CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU IS THE FORMER OHIO ATTORNEY GENERAL AND I ASSURE YOU HAS HEARD ABOUT THIS.
Fucking morons.
JPL
His name is Thorne.. kinda like what he’s gonna feel in his side.
Garbo
But if he didn’t have the attitude that she’s the asshole, he never would have made bank president, would he?
Narcissus
They can screw people pretty creatively. The problem here is that this homeowner is a peon, and deserves whatever renumeration the bank, in its magnanimity, deigns to give her.
Yet she thinks she ought to dictate terms. To the bank. The nerve.
Jay B.
She said she asked for $18k and Scrooge McFuck said that was “inflated” from what they stole from her house. My guess? The civil suit will be significantly more and if I had to live in there I would spend at least every weekend trying to get people to divest from a criminal and criminally cheap enterprise. The 18K is what they should pay for the inconvenience of stealing everything she owned. Maybe throw in, oh, I don’t know, a living room set and a new kitchen.
Felonius Monk
Why isn’t she taking them to court? I would think a bunch of lawyers would be salivating over this.
JustRuss
I’m not so sure it’s a lack of creativity (they’re very good at coming up with new ways to screw us), so much as the conservative taboo against ever admitting a mistake (see Bush, George W) . And when you do get caught, deflect and minimize it. So the bank says “Sure, we’ll replace your furniture, but it was pretty crappy so don’t even think about getting full retail for what we stole. In fact, you’re lucky we don’t charge you for hauling it away.”
They just can’t help being douchebags, it’s what they do.
Rich C.
Yup, total douchecanoe. I wrote a note to him wondering if they lobotamized the empathy part in his head when he went through business school.
wmd
To a non lawyer it appears that the bank was negligent, at least to the standards of a preponderance of the evidence. That makes John’s course of action look even more attractive.
Comrade Mary
@Felonius Monk: She’s planning a lawsuit. Good!
MattR
@Rich C.: I was going to call and ask if they own any mortgages in my area because I am planning on going on vacation and want to know if I have to worry about my place being be broken into while I am gone.
quannlace
And if he had any lawyers that were worth a fuck, that’s exactly what they would be advising him to do.
Just know that if I was a depositor at that bank I’d be yanking it out pronto.
Hungry Joe
Cole’s simple scenario would be worth hundreds of thousands in positive publicity … more, actually: You can’t buy the goodwill it would generate, if done properly. Instead, they try to shortchange her, trash her in the bargain, and will end up paying her MORE even as everybody hates their guts. That’s what MBA-Think gets you.
Ted & Hellen
Hey, when are we going to talk about the Obama DOJ being in bed with Wall Street and the banks?
JPL
@Comrade Mary: This quote was funny…. (in a sick way)
Thorne explained, “This situation was a mistake on the part of our bank and – as we have done previously – we sincerely apologize to the homeowner for the inconvenience and concern it may have caused.
Imagine coming home from vacation and finding your house trashed and have Thorne say it was just an inconvenience..
scav
They’re Fucking Lazy, Fucking Cheap and Fucking Invulnerable. They’ve gained that habit based on their recent experience that they don’t have to be anything more involved and it all works and they get their year-end bonus all the same. Moloch and Beelzebub co-sponsored their development as a PR move as the legions of Hell are attempting to reposition their brand and team.
mai naem
Nothing is going to happen until these fucker MBAs and lawyers do some hard time in a general population high security prison situation with murderers, armed robbery criminals and serial rapists. I read that Halliburton got away with a measly $200,000 fine and a “$5 million voluntary contribution to a charity.” Really? WTF does Eric Fucking Holder think that Halliburton cares about $5 million dollars? Dick Cheney wouldn’t give a shit about $5 million and he’s just the retired CEO not even the whole company? Hell, I’m pretty sure Bill Clinton spent way more money on court costs and fines than $5 million on his stupid perjury about a fucking marital affair.
Ted & Hellen
By the way, John, you are one hundred percent on the money about how the bank OUGHT to respond to this from a damage control/marketing perspective.
Hell, besides making lemonade out of some appallingly rotten lemons from a general PR perspective, they could easily show a profit just in new customers walking in the door as a result of their magnanimous response to this fuck up.
JustRuss
Interesting letter, he claims only two dressers were in the entire house, vs. her request for $18K. Much as I enjoy poking bank presidents with sharp implements, I can’t help wondering what the real story is here. Still, there’s no question the bank screwed up, and they’d have been better off to pay up and keep this on the QT.
Even if the victim is actually gouging the bank, it’s kind of refreshing to see a bank actually have to deal the consequences of it’s screw up for once.
srv
This man has a fiduciary responsibility to fuck over anyone and everyone, and you uppity folk need to get an MBA before you yack about it.
This lady was probably some horder anyway and the bank was doing a public service
Violet
You are absolutely right, John. Even if the bank only did half that stuff and spent half as much as you said, they’d still get tons of goodwill and plenty of new customers. “I bank with First National Bank of Wellston because they treat their customers right!” That’s the very best kind of advertising you can get.
He’s an idiot.
JPL
@srv: Well the lawn wasn’t mowed so there’s that.. My gosh, who would not mow their lawn for two weeks. TskTsk..
also, too.. they would never foreclose on a manicured property so she had it coming…
greennotGreen
A little bit off topic, but how do some people get so rich making what appears, from my perspective at least. to be really poor business decisions, like this guy Thorne at the bank?.
I recently visited a very large, gated retirement community with roads named things reminiscent of the Confederacy. It was a very nice community, if somewhat Stepford-like. But why choose road names that would alienate African Americans and anybody else who might actually care about people who might be African American? You couldn’t name the roads after birds, for example? Maybe the developer is a racist who just wants to stick it to the browns, but isn’t that a piss-poor business decision?
MattR
@JustRuss: From the article Comrade Mary linked to above
fuckwit
This is outrageous, but, you know, there’s something else here. I don’t know what.
I don’t believe this bankster asshole, but I have to wonder if the homeowner doesn’t have a skeleton in a few of those closets there, otherwise, hell yeah, criminal prosecution for burglary should have been on the fucking menu, right from square one, big time.
Like, perhaps the house was actually abandoned, and the idiot repo men thought for sure that was their foreclosure. Not a GPS screwup, but a prejudice screwup. And maybe there really was nothing of value in there, just some remaining junk.
Still, it’s a douchey move to pick a fight with or condescend to someone whose house you just robbed, even if it was abandoned and filled with junk. Plays right into a narrative that is quite strong right now. Bankster fucked up for sure.
Extra plus question: wonder what the race was of the homeowner and the bankster. Was there a civil rights aspect to this? Did he dismiss her grievance for reasons other than him just being arrogant and greedy?
Ruckus
@Violet:
Weren’t you being redundant when you called a bank president an idiot? OK maybe that should have been asshole idiot or scum sucking douchebag but still…
Yatsuno
@Rich C.:
Yes. It’s called business school.
Nicole
For those who haven’t seen it, I highly recommend “Hot Coffee,” an HBO (I think it’s HBO) documentary about lawsuits brought against companies for personal injury. The McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit was originally just the woman injured asking for something like $8,000 to cover her hospital costs (she suffered 3rd degree burns over a fair portion of her body). McDonald’s refused, offering (I think) $500.
Corporations will do anything to avoid admitting fault, even if it ends up costing them much more in the end. It’s really bizarre.
Ruckus
@fuckwit:
If the bank dick hadn’t admitted the mistake and that they took the stuff, maybe, and that’s a pretty big maybe, you could say there is more to the story. They broke into her house. They stole her shit. And now he says go fuck yourself? And you want to question her estimate of $18K, that there may be more to the story?
Come on.
Rob in CT
@Nicole:
Part of it, I think, is the belief that if they do get sued, they can just settle at that point. So they lowball, pretend they have no exposure at all, and get sued. If/when they encounter a plaintiff with a case who is really, really pissed, then they get their asses kicked. Well, sometimes.
In the aggregate, I bet it works out well for the bottom line.
zmullls
“We’re not paying retail here”
I hope they at least offered to the homeowner the use of one of their computers to search Craigslist to find some used furniture to replace her stuff.
SiubhanDuinne
Possibly on-topic:
I’m currently reading an extremely interesting book: The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, by George Packer.
Packer is a New Yorker writer, and The Unwinding is largely based on his NYer essays. I’m only about 1/4 of the way through, but it seems so far to be lots of anecdotal accounts of how things began to, well, unwind in the U.S. since 1980 or so. So far, the stories are brief and mostly unconnected, but based on the reviews I’ve read, Packer will pull them together to provide a “why” for all the “what.” What I don’t know is whether he offers any philosophical/political framework for the pulling-together. Regardless, it’s an interesting contrast between the celebrated few (Newt Gingrich, Oprah Winfrey) and people you have never heard of (an aide to Senator Joe Biden, a fiercely determined black single mother in Youngstown, Ohio, a born-again North Carolinian from tobacco-farming country).
As I say, I’m only a bit into the book and don’t know where it may lead, but I’d like to suggest it as the next Balloon Juice book club read. I’m sure one of our front-pagers could contact Mr. Packer and see whether he’d participate.
timj
Forget the public relations advice. This was an illegal break and enter, theft, burglary, receiving stolen merchandise, and more.
Those are crimes. The people who committed the crimes should be arrested, charged, prosecuted, and punished.
They time to start working out a P.R. strategy is when they’re released from prison in a few year’s time.
Steeplejack
@Cole:
Fuck creative. They don’t have anyone who can think like an average, semi-normal non-sociopath.
TaMara (BHF)
@fuckwit: The explanation could be as simple as she lives in a small village in Ohio. Maybe the police have no idea how to investigate “robbery by bank exec” and the county has no idea how to prosecute.
I mean, the federal government hasn’t figured that out yet, either and they’ve got many more resources.
Cassidy
@greennotGreen:
Not an accident. You can’t tell the AA family they can’t buy a house there, that’s against the law, but you can let them know that they don’t want the “wrong” people buying there.
Snarki, child of Loki
@fuckwit: “I don’t believe this bankster asshole, but I have to wonder if the homeowner doesn’t have a skeleton in a few of those closets there, otherwise, hell yeah, criminal prosecution for burglary should have been on the fucking menu, right from square one, big time.”
Didn’t read the story? She DID complain to the cops, and they totally blew her off.
jayackroyd
Not to disagree with John, or what is the right thing to do, but
1) If you’ve been reading your DDay, you know that this is not an isolated incident. It happens all the time. I imagine they target vacant properties. But, in any case, if he rolls out the red carpet for this one, then the other ones in the past, and the future will expect (reasonably and fairly) the same red carpet.
2) This is a fucking felony. B&E and grand larceny. The guys who did the actual deed should be charged. But if you’ve been reading your DDay, you’d know banks and their agents can’t commit felonies.
srv
@SiubhanDuinne: Michael Lewis’ first book was Liar’s Poker, about his life as a bond salesman in the 80’s.
In The Big Short, he says he wrote the first book as a warning. He got all sorts of letters from finance and MBA students. They all wanted to know one thing: What opportunities are there at Wall Street for ratfucking the market now and will make me the most money?
American Psycho wasn’t about a psychopath, it was about your average trader.
Eric U.
Bank of America could really do us all a favor and send a company to clean out the bankster’s house when he’s on vacation
@jayackroyd: dday sounds like a handle at GOS, can only stand to go there occasionally
Ruckus
@Cassidy:
A city used to just put a set of RR tracks through the town and call one side OK(white) and the other side shit town. Now one can’t be so open with the racism. It’s an adjustment. I imagine they want credit for making that much of a change.
Violet
From the banker’s letter:
So he says two dressers were the only furniture inside. She says they’re sleeping on beds the bank left behind. He says the utilities were turned off. She says they were on vacation. Do people off the utilities when they go on vacation? If the bank cleaned out the house, why would they leave behind beds? Is there a police report to verify what either one of them is saying?
The bank is definitely in the wrong for taking anything at all. But if the bank president lying about what the bank took, he’s even dumber than I thought. And if she’s lying, then it isn’t going to help her case.
Narcissus
The skeleton the homeowner has in her closet is she’s working class. I mean, an unmowed lawn? Little furniture? Engines in the house? How declasse.
Not to mention, how does a poor go on vacation? Suspicious.
MattR
@Snarki, child of Loki: The police only figured out that the bank was the one who had taken her stuff when the bank called to complain about squatters living in what they thought was their foreclosed property
@Violet: What does “utilities were turned off” mean? That there were no lights or air conditioning turned on? How would the bank employees know whether the account itself was suspended or discontinued? Even if they were able to call the utility company and ask, they would have given them a different address.
Odie Hugh Manatee
While your ideas for the bank making this right for the woman that they burglarized/vandalized are just common sense, the bank would never do this because in doing so they are admitting that they are at fault. In case you haven’t noticed, banks don’t make mistakes any more. Nor do most major corporations. They are the shining image of Perfection in America, flawless and without fault. Big Money never fails, everyone else is responsible for the failures that occur.
United Corporations of America > United States of America. Why? Because it’s bought and paid for, they own it. We just live here and pay the bills for them.
NotMax
First they came for the corporate lawyers.
And I said nothing.
Next they came for the MBAs.
And I said nothing.
Then they came for the bankers.
And I said nothing.
Because they were right.
jl
Why did the police close the case so quickly? The bank admitted it messed up and emptied the wrong house? So it was a civil issue not a crime?
How often does that happen to regular people, that the police do that?
Some real property thing where if you got some title, or say you do, you can do pretty much what you want?
Any lawyers here know?
Elie
The corporate sector is corrupt and largely overestimated in terms of its brains, energy and creativity. I have worked in the corporate sector now for over 15 years and I can definitely say its a wasteland of back bench talent and greedy opportunists. What originality we can generate comes from smaller firms — Yes, its catching up with us…
SiubhanDuinne
@srv:
I don’t disagree with anything you say, but I’m not sure what it has to do with the George Packer book I’m recommending.
?? :-)
I read Liar’s Poker a long time ago. Otherwise, have not really paid much attention to Michael Lewis except for hearing a couple of interviews he did on Fresh Air and similar.
SiubhanDuinne
Oh FFS I can’t even quote the title of Michael Lewis’s most famous book without being placed in moderation?
Word Press, when will you grow up? Seriously?
dexwood
@NotMax:
Wild applause and cheers break out…
Mandalay
@timj:
IANAL, and not remotely defending the bank, but is that true? Sure the bank fucked up massively, and were negligent and incompetent, and owe the homeowner, but was it criminal?
Tyro
Customer level retail service is so stunningly different than corporate level retail. Retail services will move heaven and earth to win over a customer when they fuck up this egregiously because they don’t want a bad reputation. The corporate offices, on the other hand, seem to be making a “what is she going to do about it?” calculation and figuring it isn’t worth spending a dollar or a second more on this victim than they have to.
Violet
@MattR: I was guessing it meant that there was no electricity or water or gas (if they have it) to the house. Since the bank reps were in the house, they could have tried flipping on a light switch or running the water from a tap to confirm they were off. That’s what I’d guess they meant. That’s how I’d interpret “the utilities were turned off.”
TaMara (BHF)
@Violet: Here’s some video, maybe it will answer those questions.
http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/2013/07/22/athens-county-woman-wants-possessions-back-after-bank-tried-to-repossess-wrong-house.html
The inside of the house is in good condition and they left stuff, but clearly cleaned out most of it. That happens in repos. They usually clear out stuff they can sell and leave the rest for a cleaning/trash crew to clean out later.
Baud
@Mandalay:
Probably not. Would be hard to prove intent if it was an actual mistake.
MattR
@Violet: Makes sense. For whatever reason, I was assuming they made that determination before they entered the house.
(EDIT: I tend to think that they made an innocent mistake in going to the wrong house and that everything they saw and did made perfect sense to them acting in the belief that they were at the correct house)
Mandalay
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
But the bank has admitted their mistake:
The usual story is that a company screws up, refuses to take responsibility, and refuses to make amends. This story is different because the company screws up, takes responsibility, and still refuses to make amends.
I bet that bank has a new policy of taking photos before they empty a house.
burnspbesq
@Mandalay:
Almost certainly not. Pretty much all of those alleged crimes require the prosecution to prove a mental state that would be defeated by a good faith belief (even if objectively unreasonable) that the people hired by the bank were in the right place and had a legal right to be there.
If any criminal charges are ever filed, I will buy Cole a six-pack of his favorite malt beverage.
NotMax
@burnspbesq
Does Ovaltine even come in a six-pack?
Just askin’.
burnspbesq
@Violet:
We’re a long way from knowing what the facts really are.
burnspbesq
@NotMax:
Probably at Costco or Sam’s Club.
jl
My sterling defense of the bank president and bank personnel is that they have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders to act as they do. And US law allows financial corporations to do as they damn please in pursuing their fiduciary responsibilities.
Rotten system produces rotten organizations led by rotten people. Been that way forever.
The U.S. financial industry has always had a certain flair all its own at being totally in your face and by your throat about it.
Kindly Andrew Carnegie let Frick run wild until he became too much of a PR and potential business disaster, and it became Carnegie’s fiduciary responsibility to fire him. Kindly and generous Andrew Carnegie, ruthless as hell until his conscience couldn’t let him do it anymore and no way he could change the system, he had to get totally out of the game.
Edit: I remember reading a source book of Roman history. In it I remember a letter by noble Cicero explaining why it was OK to let a rotting Roman apartment building fall in on and kill the tenants too poor, old, weak or sick to move.
Mandalay
@TaMara (BHF):
The video was instructive. At the end it states “We asked the bank for an interview but nobody would go on camera“.
Yet the bank is whining: “Nearly all of the news stories that you may have seen – regardless of whether on television or the internet – appear to have been taken directly from the local television report.”.
That’s an interesting defense: refuse to be interviewed, then whine that nobody is hearing your side of the story.
ruviana
@SiubhanDuinne: I just read this and loved it. It’s been criticized for not having solutions and a macro view, but I liked the voices of the people dealing with everything that’s happenend since the 2008 crash. Good book.
Culture of Truth
Zimmerman should’ve demanded the Martin family produce a receipt for their son.
burnspbesq
I’ve read a few mortgages and deeds of trust, and I don’t remember one in which the bank’s lien extends to personal property located in the real property that secures the loan. Why would the bank not have put all of that stuff in storage (and added the storage fee to the amount it gets to keep out of the proceeds of the sale)?
Any Ohio lawyers out there?
Violet
@TaMara (BHF): I was not aware of how repos work, but that makes sense. I guess this was step one?
Culture of Truth
I don’t what happened in this case, but the bank’s own version of events appears to be… pretty horrible.
Roger Moore
What I want to know is why the fuck they were relying on GPS coordinates as their primary means of locating the house. Haven’t these people heard of street addresses? Most buildings have large numbers on the side specifically to make it easy for people to tell one from the other. If you haven’t provided your foreclosure people with the street address and a requirement to check it before disposing of the occupants’ possessions, you’ve failed basic standards of behavior.
julie
Why rag on Richard Cordray, CFPB? There’s no reason he would know about this or would have any jurisdiction to handle a single situation like this.
ruviana
@srv: The very best book I ever read about finance was called “Liquidated” and anthro grad student’s study of finance on Wall Street. I later used it in one of my classes. It’s scary how much power that industry still has in the U.S.
jl
@TaMara (BHF):
Thanks, that does answer a lot of questions.
Clearly a low class run down shack with only crackhead trash and junked furniture in it, at least after the fact. Just a coincidence the place looks totally normal except its empty, I guess.
I like “I’m sorry but I am not running a yard sale here. I did not tell them to come in my house and make me an offer.” She might make a good litigator.
TaMara (BHF)
@Violet: In most cases. Thanks for asking those questions, though, it made me search out the video and that video really highlights the lies in the banker’s letter. About how much stuff was removed and the condition of the property. Hell my carpet doesn’t look that good and I just shampooed it. ;-)
Also like @Mandalay pointed out, news organizations have asked them for responses – the three I checked out besides the local news all said they’d tried multiple times to get a comment. I don’t think ABC News’ lawyers would let them get away with saying that if not true.
Mandalay
@Violet:
The homeowner may be making an inflated claim, but I would think that the onus is on the bank to prove that, which is tricky unless they filmed everything that they took.
As the homeowner said, “Well I’m sorry. I’m not running a yard sale here. They took my stuff and I want it back.”. I think she will hound them to the gates of hell, and good luck to her.
metricpenny
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers and the bankers.”
Fixed it.
jl
@Roger Moore:
” What I want to know is why the fuck they were relying on GPS coordinates as their primary means of locating the house.”
Because its their fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder value, and if they can get away with it, then they must use the cheapest crap ass methods and most worthless low bid scumbag contractors to do the work.
Check the address? That might take ten seconds. Time is money, my man.
IANAL, but maybe one angle would be fraud on the part of the bank or the contractor. The wrong house had more more profit potential in selling the contents (if that is legal in Ohio).. So, clean out the wrong house on purpose by mistake.
Would that be a criminal case?
JohnK
@Comrade Mary: The video at the link chains together similar stories. The third video is a story about a Florida couple foreclosing on the Bank of America after BOA wrongfully foreclosed their home. So anyway, BOA did not pay the legal fees and so five months down the road the couple shows up at the bank with a moving truck and moving crew, lawyer and two sheriff deputies. The bank handed them a check in about an hour. By cracky, when I need a lawyer, I want one just like that! Not only did the lawyer get the couple their settlement but he got the branch manager by the balls with the help of the sheriff and ripped em right off;)
Roger Moore
@Violet:
The bank president probably isn’t lying per se. He has no first hand knowledge of what happened and is just repeating the reports from his employees. Those reports are most likely lies made up by the employees to cover their asses when they figured out how badly they had screwed up. I also wouldn’t be surprised if they had gotten in the habit of failing to report the really good stuff they took out of foreclosed houses and keeping it for themselves.
TaMara (BHF)
@Mandalay:
@jl:
I have to wonder if that comment alone isn’t why it got picked up nationally. I mean she’s great. Horrible bank, horrible actions + witty woman = viral.
Culture of Truth
I like “I’m sorry but I am not running a yard sale here. I did not tell them to come in my house and make me an offer.” She might make a good litigator.
Seriously, that’s a great comeback. Maybe she has legal training? Anyway, I love it.
What do “conservatives” think of this? If they support thisbanks over individual property rights it tells where this so called indivdual rights and freedom and liberty party really stands.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
Wouldn’t it be enough to prove something like reckless indifference? They apparently didn’t bother to check the street address, which seems like an absolute minimum level of care required before going into a house and stripping it. It also sounds as if they made no attempt to correct their mistake, contact the homeowner, or inform their superiors when they discovered the mistake.
Mandalay
@Roger Moore:
Indeed. The news clip shows that the house numbers are clearly marked on the mailboxes of both the homeowner’s home, and that of the house the bank should have gone to. And the TV station also verified that their GPS sent them to the correct home.
The bank looks like an asshole on so many different levels.
Jay C
@MattR:
You’re probably quite right, but that’s not the issue here: the problem is when the bank found out that they had indeed gone to the wrong house (even if discovered belatedly), they should have not just “apologized”* to the homeowner, but at least (as so many here have pointed out), try to get some good PR out of the situation by making her right, and at least trying to look like some sort of responsible institution. Instead, they end up looking like dicks. And, apparently, not caring if they do….
*IIJM, or does FNBW’s “apology” reek of malodorous insincerity? Even by bank standards…
greennotGreen
@Cassidy: Yeah, but isn’t that a stupid policy long term? This is a community that has a possibly sizable HOA fee because of the services they offer. If in the future the residents have trouble selling their houses because people of color retire and they’re becoming a larger segment of the population, the number of households paying HOA fees goes down. I give up. I just can’t think like a Republican.
J R in WV
@greennotGreen:
No, no – they can charge extra from the bigots who will immediately realize that no African American person will ever want to move in next door.
I went to a wedding in Decatur GA once, and one of the nice GA Methodists asked “How do you all keep them out of your church up North?”
We were too stupified to answer, and so he detected he had put his foot in it, and we were all ni-CLANG-lovers. Things got frosty after that.
Omnes Omnibus
@julie: Who is ragging on Cordray?
jl
@Culture of Truth: I feel like the class nerd, but John Adams did think about the costs and benefits of Anglo Saxon real property law. I remember something like: face validity of real property contracts is a good way to smooth problems with transactions and keep things running, but enables fraud and bad faith dealing, the former good is supposed to outweighs the latter cost, but who has ever really counted the cost?
Of course Adams decided that nothing could be changed even if the costs were huge, since changing anything meant anything could be changed, and property rights would not be secure and society would fall apart!
I think U.S. conservative thought has been going more or less steadily downhill ever since.
Roger Moore
@jl:
GPS sets cost money, too. Give ’em a street address and a printout from Google Maps showing them how to get there. It’ll save even more money and prevent them from sparking lawsuits by breaking into the wrong house.
Culture of Truth
Wouldn’t it be enough to prove something like reckless indifference?
Is that crime in Ohio?
Negligence is a tort, and in any case I for am a little tired of crimes such as breaking and entering treated as
youthfulindiscretionscorporate indiscretions in this country.
Omnes Omnibus
@MattR: If you are repossessing someone’s house and taking away their property, the onus should be on you to get it right.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
For property crimes, I don’t believe recklessness is enough.
Roger Moore
@Mandalay:
GPS has substantial accuracy problems. It’s only good to about 3 meters under ideal conditions and can have much larger errors if anything goes wrong. A 15 meter error could easily put you on the wrong side of the street. It’s just a crap way of doing the job, as this case proves.
Mandalay
@Roger Moore:
I once worked on a software project at a law firm where the attorneys did nothing but handle bankruptcies. The office was full of computer equipment that they stole from those bankrupt companies, and I use the word “stole” deliberately. They viewed the fancy equipment as a perk of their job, and thought it was no biggie because the company they stole it from had gone belly up anyway.
Eric U.
I thought the U.S. went back to encrypting the GPS clocks, and so the error is something like 10 meters. But maybe Obama went back and unencrypted the clocks.
eponymous
@Roger Moore:
This sounds entirely plausible – the bank is located in McArthur, Vinton County. Wellston (from the bank’s name) is just across the border in Jackson County. These are two of the most economically depressed counties in the state.
jl
@Roger Moore: I can’t help but wonder about fraud by either bank staff or a contractor. I want to know the comparative value of the contents of the two houses.
If the police investigated this case like the way they would have if the woman had, say, taken advantage of mistake on the part of the bank and tried to keep the money, they would do a more thorough investigation. And they would spend a little time on avenues like that. But I wonder if they even bothered to do anything.
I think you were the one also thinking about fraud someplace in comments above.
Edit: in my grad school days, I made some big bucks quick doing summer work for a forensic economic consulting firm on real property and mortgage fraud cases and civil suits. I seen things. That is the reason I think about fraud.
ruviana
One interesting thing is that this story is getting traction across the political spectrum, on both the left and right. I think most people could imagine it happening to them.
MattR
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t disagree. Obviously the bank should be compensating the woman and her family and John’s suggestions are right on the money. But from what I have read, I don’t think it was done intentionally or with malice. OTOH, the letter from the bank seems to contain numerous falsehoods so maybe I shouldn’t even be giving them that benefit of the doubt.
Roger Moore
@greennotGreen:
At least in my neck of the woods, that’s not how HOAs work. The HOA is a legal entity controlled by the homeowners. They usually contract out the actual management, but they’re free to shop around and pick a different management company if they’re dissatisfied with the current one. The developer that picked the street names is likely in this only for the short term; they want to sell the houses as quickly as possible to recover their capital investment and move on to the next project. Even if they set themselves up as the initial management company for the HOA, they’re likely to be replaced before too terribly long.
BillinGlendaleCA
@JohnK: About 15 years ago, someone had a judgement against Wells Fargo and attached a lean their stagecoach.
Omnes Omnibus
@MattR: In my view, this should be a strict liability issue. I know it isn’t but I am not inclined to cut the bank any slack at all.
MattR
@JohnK: I loved that story when I first heard it. I think getting to see the look in the bank manager’s eyes as the lawyer starts telling sheriff’s deputies which equipment they were going to take as payment is worth more than the $2500 they were initially owed.
@Omnes Omnibus: Do you mean civilly or criminally?
PS. The bank would not want me on a jury deciding punitive damages.
jl
I remember a case where a bank whose name would be familiar to all did diddly squat in oversight until the mortgage fraudsters took the money and ran.
I remember naive me sincerely puzzling over how even this biig huge bank could do almost 100 appraisals in one day (coincidentally just as the crooked mortgage deals started falling apart).
I showed the docs to a grizzled veteran in the office who laughed ‘Drive by appraisals. They drove through the neighborhood and made up some numbers.. They suddenly smelled the shit coming down and had to make it look they spent even a minute doing some work on the deal’
That consulting was a horrible trade. The youngins; maing it their career were bros and bro-ettes. The veterans had piles money and were drinking and smoking themselves to death.
Bokonon
@greennotGreen: Actually, if you are thinking like some Republicans, and you purchased a house in that development with the Confederate street names, you might figure that the Rapture will have come by then … and you won’t need to worry about silly earthly things like property values. That will be something left over for those left behind. If everything is literally going to hell, who cares about the long term?
Either that, or these people are just being a short sighted jerks, and are so intent on pulling up the drawbridge and creating their own little gated enclave of privilege that they can’t even THINK about there being a downside. Or they have gigantic blind spots about celebrating their “heritage” – and how that would look to someone who isn’t caucasian.
Just as an example – there was an angry, right wing couple that lived up the street from me. They were original owners in our subdivision (dating back to the early 1970s). And they just seemed to HATE all of us young families that started moving in a few years ago, when other original owners started retiring and selling the houses. They glared at me, never returned a smile or a wave – possibly because they saw the Obama sticker on my car back in 2008. Never mind that I joined the community board, that my wife and I gardened, and landscaped, and fixed up our house, and went to church every Sunday, and were the kind of eager, energetic, clean-cut, happy new owners the community really loved to get. To those neighbors, we were the wrong kind of people for THEIR community. Those neighbors finally sold their house and moved when a lesbian couple moved into the neighborhood. And now they are probably in some gated community someplace, staring outward at the world beyond with anger and disbelief, while they lock out the people that they think are their enemies.
Omnes Omnibus
@MattR: Civilly.
Roger Moore
@Eric U.:
If they encrypt the GPS clocks, the error goes up to the range of 50-100m, which substantially degrades its utility for civilian navigation. The encryption was turned off toward the end of the Clinton Administration, and GPS is important enough to daily life that it would be almost unthinkable to turn it back on. Under ideal conditions, my GPS reports an error on the order of 3 meters, but it can be a lot higher than that if reception is poor.
gian
@jl:
Intent matters for a criminal charge. The bank’s agents went to the wrong house because their GPS had gastritis. Or they typed the address.
So the argument is about the intent … and reasonable doubt… and a rough looking house goes that way.
I figure the emotional distress civil claim will be more than 18k
Stupid fuckers
sylvainsylvain
I’d like to see more on the local LE side of this…
AFAIK, a sheriff/deputy has to be present when serving an eviction notice/foreclosure, to make sure everything’s ‘legal’. If it’s one of the poorest parts of Ohio, then there’s gonna be a high probability there’s some small time corruption going on here.
Need some young journalist or local blogger to jump on this with both feet and make a name for themselves, nothing riles up the masses like the banks & the cops ganging up on someone they can identify with.
Sh!t, nothing riles up the masses, what am I thinking…
julie
@Omnes Omnibus: Cole
Jay C
@Cassidy:
@greennotGreen:
Naah, I think @J R in WV: has it right: They probably assume that the few black folks who could afford to move in probably aren’t going to want to live on Alexander Stephens Court (corner of Nathan Bedford Forrest Rd., across from Fort Pillow Park) and that the supply of adequately-heeled whites will remain steady, even into the future, so depressing their possible future customer base wouldn’t be an issue.
El Cid
I hope the bank can’t claim they feel threatened by this lady and shoot her in anticipatory self-defense.
Omnes Omnibus
@julie: I think Cole was pointing out that this bank is now probably on the radar of the CFPB. This is something the bank probably does not want.
Roger Moore
@julie:
I think you’re misunderstanding Cole. He isn’t criticizing Cordray as ineffective; he’s saying the bank may be especially stupid because Cordray, as a local, is going to know about and take a personal interest in the case.
jl
@gian: thanks, and even IANAL me should have remembered tha about intent, but I still wonder about fraud. There would be some intent there.
debbie
@julie:
No worries. This is the kind of stuff Cordray eats for breakfast. That bank president may not realize it yet, but he will live to regret his attitude.
ericblair
@Roger Moore:
Yabbut that’s not the problem. If I understand correctly, the mapping companies (Teleatlas and NAVTEQ) don’t record the coordinates of every house on every street, but interpolate from a few key numbers on the street. So it’s not a matter of the GPS being accurate to x meters, it’s that you’re kind of estimating where the house is based on the street numbering pattern. Which doesn’t work perfectly all the time. Of course, you could read those numbers on the side of the house, but that would be cheating or something.
I’m wondering too how these guys managed to have a lien on the contents of the house, since I don’t remember that being in any mortgage paperwork I’ve ever signed. That could be burglary right there.
YellowJournalism
“Douche canoe” is such a useful phrase. Who do we have to thank for that, again?
JGabriel
I’ve said this before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but this is yet another story which proves that if anyone wanted to make a killing in the banking business in this country, all they’d have to do is make Bank With Us, We’re Not Assholes! their slogan and live up to it.
The entire country would flock to them in a frenzy of amazed gratitude.
John Cole
@julie: I’m not ragging on him. I love him. He just got appointed and this shit is happening in his back yard- hell, his wife is reading about it in the locals.
He’s going to fucking curbjaw this asshole Thorne, and I just wish I could watch it.
? Martin
The bank has $100M in assets. That sounds like a lot, but it’s not. My county credit union has 30x that much. If word spreads and people pull their money out, that bank is fucked. I don’t know the president would risk that.
@ericblair: It is. In every state I know of, even if you are foreclosed on, you automatically become a tenant until evicted. Eviction and foreclosure are separate processes.
But yeah, this is a case study for why the CFPB needed to be created.
? Martin
@JGabriel:
Fucking credit unions, how do they work?
SteveM
Now I know where to mail the dogshit.
MattR
@SteveM: Just make sure you get the right address
mainmati
It’s a combination of inherent, natural evil and stupidity. The modern GOPers own that.
Roger Moore
@ericblair:
I suspect that the claim is that the property had been properly foreclosed and the tenants had been served an eviction notice. In that case, if it appeared that the house had been vacated, you might assume that any effects left in the place had been abandoned and were fair game.
Duane
Since bank employees don’t hoodies, they can’t be considered thugs or gangsters, therefore honest mistake….nothing to see move along……oops things happen…..
we are so screwed as a nation
Lyrebird
@Roger Moore: Thank you!! Late to the party, but I sure did notice in the little bit of video I saw a clearly-marked house number on the mailbox!
If they can’t repossess the right house with giant numbers labeling it… uh… they have a problem! And JC is totally right on this one.
Roger Moore
@JGabriel:
Not being assholes might get a bank a lot of customers, but it won’t guarantee profits. Some of the banks worst misbehavior is their tendency to levy endless fees, many of which are effectively unavoidable, e.g. you can pay either transaction fees or inactivity fees, but you’ll pay some fee no matter what you do. If you promise to stop all the fees, where are your profits supposed to come from?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: Back in the Dark Ages, they made a profit from the spread between the interest charged for loans and the interest paid on deposits. I know, such old fashioned thinkin’.
Violet
@BillinGlendaleCA: Yeah, imagine that. Banks also weren’t run by hotshot MBAs–they were run by that boring guy in the grey suit. And they didn’t have their money tied up in risky market ventures. They were not allowed to do so. How quaint.
Xenos
@Omnes Omnibus:
Unless they have a court order in hand and a sheriff by their side they should not be entering any house. Here, they thought they already had lawful possession and claim to be operating in good faith, but that is worthless in any other sort of trespass and conversion case.
The funny thing is if this arose out of a consumer protection scenario she would probably get triple damages and attorneys’ fees. As a member of the public victimized by random incompetence she stands to get less. I hope Cordray decides to make an example of this one.
Xenos
@ericblair:
Burglary requires criminal intent. Entirely possible that the subcontracters who trashed the house were searching for valuables, stealing them, and then trashing the house as cover. But otherwise, if the negligent house-clearing theory is true, then there is not basis to prosecute as there would be evidence of criminal intent.
Now, since the number on the house was prominently displayed it might be a good idea for plaintiff to take seek a criminal complaint as a way of dramatically raising the stakes even though it would be likely to fail (probably would be worth the trouble in my home state, fwiw), that is a matter of state law and strategy. If a bank’s employees are stealing people’s stuff you have an awful lot of leverage to escalate damages by a factor of 10. Even just credibly claiming this, without good evidence, could get he bank president opening his wallet in a hurry.
Gretchen
The banker said he’s not giving her retail for the worth of her belongings. But she has to pay retail to buy replacements. Or does he think garage sales and the Salvation Army is good enough for her?
Kyle
@Roger Moore:
This.
The clean-out job is probably done by contractors, who bid low on the expectation that they’ll turn some bucks fencing, er, selling the contents they remove from the house. A nice racket for everyone.
Mike G
That would require some imagination and basic human empathy, as opposed to the predator mindset of the MBA Vermin of fucking over everyone as far you can possibly get away with, and never owning up to any error or mistake.
We all lived through eight years of this attitude with the Cheney/Bush/Rove criminal trainwreck.
Roger Moore
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Yes, but they’ve basically exhausted that approach. They’re paying approximately 0% interest on deposits, which limits their ability to expand their interest rate spreads. The assorted fees are basically an attempt to set a negative interest rate on deposits.
RSA
This case seems to be such a smal step from my hypothetically telling a bunch of friends, “I’m simplifying. Come into my house while I’m on vacation and take what you want–you remember where I live,” and turning every house in my neighborhood into fair game, if they owner’s not home. Innocent mistakes all around, I suppose, but I’m morally certain the police would treat my case differently.
LAC
@Ted & Hellen: as soon as we get an update on your latest painting “eating alone and crying”. I hear it is a self portrait.
LAC
@burnspbesq: Probably why we need the lawyers – I mean before we slide off our burkenstocks and start beating them while screaming “UTOPIA NOT LAWS!!” Bank president is a dick, but I hope she lawyered up.
julie
@John Cole: Thanks for clarifying, but I’m not sure Cordray, CFPB, has the authority to take action on individual cases like that. Perhaps that’s a job for his predecessor, the current OH AG.
brettvk
@julie: I see that the current AG is Mike DeWine. I wonder if he’ll do anything about this (even if asked).
Omnes Omnibus
@julie: One of the responsibilities of the CFPB is enforcement. It has an enforcement division that, coincidentally, is headed by Kent Markus, a lawyer and law professor from Columbus, Ohio.
TerryC
@srv: Michigan Law 1980, yes, there were many psychopaths in that class.
Centerfielddj
@JustRuss:
Since this banker is literally a habitual thief (“…as we have done before…”), I don’t trust his representation of the facts.
Badtux
@quannlace: I can guarantee you that his lawyers told him to settle for what the woman asked. But there’s only so much you can do as a lawyer if your client is an idiot.
Jose Padilla
@jl:
The police are hesitant to get involved when an entity with some clout is involved. When an average Joe is involved, not so hesitant. I have a case where a developer is simultaneously trying to drive off/buy out residents in a condo complex. The complex is located in a part of Houston where land values are going up and a lot of new condos are being built (3rd Ward). The complex is run down. About a quarter of the units were destroyed in a fire. My client owns seven units. Representatives of the developer have told my client’s tenants that he doesn’t really own the properties and they don’t have to pay rent. They also tried to evict one of the tenants claiming the developer now owned the property and took a eight hundred dollar check from him as “rent”, basically extortion. When I reported this to the police, they didn’t give a shit. Called it a civil matter.
Ally
@Hungry Joe: Right? They’d MAKE MONEY by doing this. I just don’t get it.
low-tech cyclist
@Roger Moore:
This is the part where I think the bank and its agents should be charged with criminal negligence. The bank had a responsibility to use appropriate means to identify which house was the one they’d foreclosed on, before they started doing stuff to it.
Street addresses would work just fine for this. But GPS?! Gimme a fuckin’ break. GPS is perfectly good for situations where being off by a house or three is a no-harm, no-foul sort of thing, like finding a party at a friend’s house that you’ve never been to before. But you wouldn’t want to take possession of a house and start doing stuff to it based on GPS. I think the bank stands to get absolutely hammered for that if it comes to a lawsuit.
johnny aquitard
@Violet: Turning off the water is a good idea. Gas too, in the summer. I’ve done it before when going on vacation. A running toilet, a dripping faucet over a week can run up a surprisingly shocking water & sewer bill. And no ones around to smell and report a gas leak. And in winter in a cold climate, if the furnace goes out and the water’s on, a broken pipe is an utter disaster.
A distant relation of mine who lived in a cold climate went on a 10-day christmas vacation, didn’t turn off the water and while he was gone it got very cold, down below zero, and alas the furnace went out.
The pipes in the upstairs bathroom burst and flooded his home. He came home to an foot of ice in the living room and massive icicles hanging from the ceiling. His house and just about everything in it was destroyed.