Comments on: Countrywide Lays Off at Full Spectrum Group

By: Tipster: Most Countrywide Full Spectrum Lending Branches Closing

Tipster: Most Countrywide Full Spectrum Lending Branches Closing — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 05:46:13 +0000

[...] Countrywide’s subprime and Alt-A retail origination group. The company’s been laying off folks in this division (and others) as part of its original downsizing [...]

By: Terry Workinger

Terry Workinger — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 04:49:10 +0000

I have read almost every single posting, and as a former FSL AE, I need to say some things.
1) to the schmuck who said that only the crappy AE’s got canned, I was # 11 in the freaking nation, and I am gone !
2) Countrywide AE’s could NOT push a paper people to subprime, computer would not allow it, period, , so drop it.

Last, they spent YEARS screwing us on overtime. The way my wife figured it, after 3 years with them, they owe me about 18K. Know any good lawyers ?

By: Bob Ulmer

Bob Ulmer — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:38:24 +0000

I am an investigator at a law firm in Tampa, Florida called James, Hoyer, Newcomer and Smiljanich PA. We are a class action law firm and we are investigating claims made by Countrywide borrowers / consumers who claim, as prime borrowers, they were put into subprime mortgages. If you are a former employee of Countrywide and have any information about these practices, please contact me at rulmer@jmaeshoyer.com or 1-800-651-2502

By: Employee Rights Activist

Employee Rights Activist — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 23:22:16 +0000

Overtime Class Action Investigation | Countrywide Financial Mortgage Loan Employees If you were employed by Countrywide Financial as a mortgage loan officer, loan processor, loan originator, or loan consultant and did not receive earned wages or overtime pay, you might want to contact some overtime class action attorneys investigating unpaid wage and overtime issues. Report Unpaid Wages and Overtime

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 12:45:57 +0000

I have a couple responses to comments here:
1. Wondergirl, I can totally confirm to everyone here your comment about the computer systems. On the wholesale side, it was pretty much impossible for SLG (wholesale subprime) to refer loans to WLD (wholesale prime), at elast when I was there 8 months ago. The “One Source Lender” initiative was not very technically up to date. Easier to try to close the deal SLG then to try to take it prime.

2. Fran – I can confirm to you that it was not necessarily LO greed because, as you said, they were not making the “rips” on deals that you cuold expect. It was at best a poorly thought out plan by higher ups, and at worst big time greed from higher ups getting bonuses on higher sales margins for secondary market sold subprime deals. The loan officers just wanted a safe job, but I hope they eventually learned that this kind of tactic is wrong. I worked for a retail non prime national lender (I won’t mention their name, but it rhymes with “Dells Dargo”)right out of college and sold 19% interest at 80ltv to people with 700+ scores. I didn’t know what was out there, and I was sheltered. But when I found out I bailed!

3. FSL Insider – I could not add more to what you said. I have heard similar stories from a FSL branch here in Ohio, and similar things also happened at WLD, but there were different ways to manipulate over there, and it was usually so upper management could appear to have higher branch profit (basis for their bonus) while charging items to the AE (reducing AE pay, therefore increasing branch profit, and again a higher bonus!)

By: FSLinsider

FSLinsider — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 05:01:09 +0000

FSL is the biggest joke of a company I have ever worked for. In my region we had PMs (Production Managers) TMs (Team managers) and AE (account executives) manipulating the bonus system to the tune of $250-$300k over a period of 9 months and NOBODY WAS FIRED!! If an AE was only going to close 2 loans, they could just reassign the loan to another AE that had a bigger pipeline to increase the bps pay out then just pay back the transferring AE the money for the 2 loans at the increased bps under the table less taxes of course. TMs have about 5 AEs on their team and if the 5 close 30-35 loans then the TM would make about $4-5k in bonus. Well there was a TM that was doing 50 plus with his 5 and the other 10 AEs on the team were doing another 3 loans total (RED FLAG HERE ANYONE!!). So this TM with his 50 loans every month was making $15-$20k every month for almost a year until someone blew the whistle and HR came in and started interview people about the scandle. Of course all the AE’s and TMs and PMs knew ahead of time and so they got a story ready and lied their asses off. They told the HR people that these loans that were transferred because the original AE was not calling the customer back and was not working the file correctly. HR did an audit on how much overage commission was paid out on these transferred loans and the total came up to nearly $300k and NO ONE was FIRED isn’t that a felony to steal that much money. What a joke!!

Anyway at my region they just laid off on the non-tenured AE’s and they have most of the tenured ones on performance enhancment plans (which means you close 5 loans this month or hit the road). The reason I think that they laid off the non-tenured ones is because they could not fire them with the performance plan because the have not been employed long enough so FSL’s thought was (Heck if we can’t fire them on the performance plan then we might as well lay them off)
I have a feeling that there is an incentive for FSL to fire people for performance than to layoff.

Well the processing staff was the first to go in my region and our pipeline was dumped on just 8 processors in Chandler Arizonia. I have 8 loans in my pipeline that I have just been waiting on a final HUD and notary since August and those LOANS ARE STILL NOT CLOSED and my customers are screaming at my on a daily basis. I have tried to get my manager to help and they just tell me not to worry about it, or to control my borrowers and get back on the phone.

I am putting in my 2 week notice tomorrow now that I have recieved my last bonus tonite should be in my account by midnite.

FSL could be a super power in the mortgage industry if they would just get their act together, such a shame to see a company with so much potential managed so poorly.

By: Fran

Fran — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 03:44:03 +0000

How can you call FSL Cwide LO’s Greedy? They are led to cwide by visions of job stability, the notion of upward mobilty, 401k, health benefits and blah blah blah. Cwide would dictate what a lo would charge on a subprime loan (3 pt discount) \ and god what they would make on the yield (3)plus junk fees. So on a 500k deal cwide would net 31k on discount/yield and fees and the LO would make 20 bps if they closed one deal. Yes that is 1000 beer money bucks. Close a mil and make 2k plus your 1400 salary? Sounds like the LO’s were banking? Lee, DVP, RVP and the other 14 teirs of mangement are banking.. NOT THE LO’s..

By: WonderGirl

WonderGirl — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 01:53:33 +0000

Agreed that a lot of greedy individuals made a lot of money from a lot of bad loans, particularly at FSL. Someone stated earlier that the systems were “rigged” to leave out certain information that would clearly identify a loan as prime. The truth is, the systems were flawed but the individuals who input the information were steering the loan where they wanted it to go. Garbage in, gargabe out! A culture existed whereby sales people were trained and encouraged to do certain things. Was this culture promoted by Countrywide as a company, not necessarily, but people in pretty high and influental positions encouraged it (as far up as DEVP level). A little known (or perhaps well known) nuance of CW’s systems is that CMD’s version of the POS/LOS is not necessarily compatable with FSL’s version (same systems, don’t talk to eachother) If a loan came into FSL that was prime, there’s no easy way to send it to CMD and NO automatic transfer of the loan to the Prime side. Futhermore, a sales person could probably make more $ refering it to an outside company. Even though FSL incented the Prime LO, it was a small bps. But they could make a killing if they made the loan appear subprime and close it. The incident in the link attached here, outed these practices but the individual referenced in this article was merely a victim of what he learned from the day he walked into FSL. After this happened in 2004, a huge effort to tighten up the systems and processes occured… CW had a huge appetite for the business, whatever the method applied by the LO’s. They are paying the price now….

http://www.msfraud.org/Articles/countrywide.htm

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:13:22 +0000

Greg – I agree with you that the layoffs at all divisions of Countrywide are probably deserved. But these days I think strength is not the only requirement of survival, but smart as well. I’m not speaking about you personally, and I hope nothing but the best for everyone at countrywide (I worked there for quite a while), but decisions made that were great in the short run are going to hurt countrywide more. The damage is not done. How many more investors are going to extend credit to them? I guess we’ll see. I agree with the Countrywide staffers that regularly comment here that Countrywide is being managed by the smartest people in the business. Just take a look at their recent stock trading/selling activity. If your own leaders won’t throw their money into the pot, why should an investor (and I am tired of hearing that AM is just cashing in due to age and the nearing retirement – that guy will live forever!).
My opinion is that Countrywide will do some major reconstructing – down to a work force 20% of current size – if they survive. More likely, they will merge with someone. The bank is not going to get it there!

By: Stormer

Stormer — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 20:38:47 +0000

Im a former Countrywide prime loan originator. I was at Countrywide for about six months and worked out of one of one of the offices in (I think) the second largest business regions in the Company.

In short – their prime portfolio (at least out of my region) is crap. Regional management – to whom sales AND underwriting report (major control issue?), get bonuses based on loan production. The regional head was often consulted by the head underwriter when “questionable” applications were put in. Things like a stated income transaction showing a public school teacher with 2 years experience making $300K per year. He’d often approve these. I saw many deals that REALLY stretched guidelines.

I cant speak for every region or office – but I have to believe that if this was how business was conducted in our region – and if it is representative of how other regions do business – we’re likely to see MAJOR problems as prime loans in the portfolio really aren’t what they are supposed to be.