Archive for October, 2008
We receive reports for our consumer advocacy and watchdog website Household – HSBC Watch. What we are hearing form homeowners does not correspond with what we are seeing in the news. The discrepancy prompted us to investigate. What we found is disturbing. The news seems to speak to investors and the stock market. Articles that claim foreclosures are down are sometimes false. Help from HOPE NOW may be misleading. Here is what we found:
We receive reader input almost every day. Last summer we wrote about mortgage lenders and servicers that call customers, often before the due date. Many of those lenders are gone, erased from the financial landscape altogether. Nobody will miss them. But it seems Saxon Mortgage has joined this group. Calling customers well before the payment is due, Saxon seems to anger their customers. This lender bears considerable scrutiny. Panic by Saxon does not constitute an emergency for the home owner.
This was submitted by a reader: LONDON (AP) – The British government injected an unprecedented 37 billion pounds ($63 billion) into some of the country’s leading banks Monday to avoid a full-scale collapse of the sector.
Who is the biggest subprime lender in America? It is not an American bank. It is HSBC, which is headquartered in London. HSBC stands for Hong Kong Shanghai Bank Corp. HSBC was quick to appeal the initial bailout proposal that banks must be US-based. HSBC is also eligible for the UK bailout. Here is how they ranked since the summer of 2007: