NPR featured a story on Tracy Warren, an auditor at Watterson-Prime, a quality control contractor who reviewed subprime loans for investment banks before they were sold on Wall Street. (The biggest client of Watterson-Prime? Bear Stearns.) She has over 25 years of experience in mortgage lending and her job was to find bad loans and say no.
Warren says that when she’d reject (kick out) a loan, her supervisors would overrule her and the loan would be approved. She says that they’d justify overruling the kicks, yet the applicants clearly weren’t qualified, often with very poor credit scores or income that wasn’t verified and didn’t pass the smell test. Continue reading