Could black Americans be using one of the most well-known personalities and philanthropists as an unwitting accomplice for fraudulent borrowing? “We’re allowed to use her (name) as collateral,” according to TV correspondent Larry Wilmore.  Watch his spellbinding report to see for yourself...

"Subprime is the ‘financial N-word!" and "...it's the menthol cigarettes of loans," says the controversial TV reporter in this eye-opening report, first broadcast last fall.

Wanna see if you live in a 'risky' community that's been redlined?  Check out Countrywide's not-so-secret list, now in wide circulation...

Remember when I toldja that the Fed's cut of the prime interest rate would mean nothing to consumers...especially credit cardholders?  Check out the latest round of greed-based lies out of the credit card world, from your pals at Bank of America. 

Ben's bottom line?  The banks make bad lending mistakes = We pay/we cover their losses. 

Speaking of consumer UN-friendly banks: Could your bank be intentionally ignoring fraudulent activity because the bad guys pay them huge fees?  Uhhhhhhh...yeah!  This is an amazing story — and it's even true.  According to the New York Times: “Last spring, Wachovia bank was accused in a lawsuit of allowing fraudulent telemarketers to use the bank’s accounts to steal millions of dollars from unsuspecting victims. When asked about the suit, bank executives said they had been unaware of the thefts.”

Oops, liar liar, pants afire! “But newly released documents from that lawsuit now show that Wachovia had long known about allegations of fraud and that the bank, in fact, solicited business from companies it knew had been accused of telemarketing crimes.

So lemme get this straight: If you pay your bank enough money, they’ll let you do illegal stuff? “Internal Wachovia e-mail, for example, show that high-ranking employees at the nation’s fourth-largest bank frequently warned colleagues about telemarketing frauds routed through its accounts. Documents also show that Wachovia was alerted by other banks and federal agencies about ongoing deceptions, but that it continued to provide banking services to multiple companies that helped steal as much as $400 million from unsuspecting victims.”

Here’s one more reminder why you’d better be careful about what you write in your e-mails: ““YIKES!!!!” wrote one Wachovia executive in 2005, warning colleagues that an account used by telemarketers had drawn 4,500 complaints in just two months. “DOUBLE YIKES!!!!” she added. “There is more, but nothing more that I want to put into a note.”

Bottom line?  Crime pays, at least for Wachovia shareholders: “However, Wachovia continued processing fraudulent transactions for that account and others, partly because the bank charged fraud artists a large fee every time a victim spotted a bogus transaction and demanded their money back. One company alone paid Wachovia about $1.5 million over 11 months, according to investigators. “We are making a ton of money from them,” wrote Linda Pera, a Wachovia executive, in 2005 about a company that was later accused by federal prosecutors of helping steal up to $142 million.  Ms. Pera left Wachovia in 2006, and could not be located.” (Surprise!!!) 

You've gotta read the whole story, so here you go...

Coming up in my next blog post, a most-disturbing story: How this infamously-cute baby is helping insurance companies con old people into wasting their hard-earned money!  (I don't have to make this stuff up!)

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