Robosigning Redux? Regulator Probes Chase Over Credit Card Collections

[myrna minx]

http://moneyland.time.com/2012/03/15/regulator-probes-chase-over-allegations-of-robosigning-in-credit-card-collections/

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is reportedly taking a good, hard look at the practices that credit card giant JP Morgan Chase used in its credit card collections business. American Banker has reported at length on this new “robosigning” bombshell. “The bank’s errors could call into question the legitimacy of billions of dollars in outstanding claims against debtors and of legal judgments Chase has already won,” it says in an article published earlier this week.

This was big business for Chase; the article says in 2009 alone, it earned more than $1.2 billion off old credit card debt. The problem was that the numbers didn’t always add up. The magazine talked to current and former employees who say they were pressured to sign off on documents verifying the debts even when the amounts couldn’t be confirmed.

Assistant vice president-turned-whistleblower Linda Almonte says she was fired in 2010 for raising concerns about the shoddy state of the records being sold to debt buyers. “Nearly half of the files her team sampled were missing proofs of judgment or other essential information… nearly a quarter of the files misstated how much the borrower owed,” American Banker says. Most of the debts were actually lower, Almonte alleged.



Read more: http://moneyland.time.com/2012/03/15/regulator-probes-chase-over-allegations-of-robosigning-in-credit-card-collections/#ixzz1pClra2yx

[safeinOhio]

1. and if you are a day late

on a CC payment........