I’m thrilled to host Lisa Black again at Murder She Writes. Not only because she’s a terrific person, but because she writes terrific books — with fabulous covers. Look at this cover of her upcoming book PERISH … just gorgeous, dark and evocative and tells a story in and of itself.
So please welcome Lisa and read her very interesting post … then head on over to her webpage to read an excerpt!
GREED IS NOT ALWAYS GOOD
When a bank or financial firm’s loan officer tells you “I want to be sure you get the best loan possible,” it might be a good idea to remind yourself that this person does not work for you. He or she works for the bank.
In other words, trust but verify.
There is not a better lesson for this caution than the case of Countrywide Financial Corporation. A short ten years ago, Countrywide was a $500 billion home loan machine with 62,000 employees. Founded by Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide made standard home loans to people with excellent credit as well as ‘subprime’ borrowers with not-so-great histories. They provided home equity lines of credit. They serviced other loans, doing the grunt work of collecting payments and disbursing them to investors, which provided a great database of borrowers to call up and offer a ‘better’ deal. Intensive telemarketing drove the business.
All well and good, business as usual. Until you take a closer look.
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