The Two “America’s Wholesale Lender” Frauds No One Is Talking About
There is a good possibility your mortgage and note state the lender is America’s Wholesale Lender if you received a Countrywide mortgage through a broker during the housing boom. Countrywide began using the name to determine which loans were originated on the wholesale market.
Countrywide Financial claimed America’s Wholesale Lender was a DBA of Countrywide Home Loans.
Any mortgage or Deed of Trust issued by Countrywide Home Loans that names America’s Wholesale Lender as the “Lender”, is usually followed by “Lender is a Corporation organized and existing under the laws of New York”
It usually looks like this:
This Create Major Problems For Bank of America
This creates two major issues for Bank of America. First of all, it shows Countrywide misled homeowners as to who their lender was right out of the gate. Second, AWL was not and never was a New York Corporation.
Countrywide trademarked the name (Reg. #1872784) but never incorporated AWL as a corporation in New York. The now-defunct lender also failed to file DBA papers in Manhattan.
An America’s Wholesale Lender incorporated in New York. However, it has no connection with Countrywide or Bank of America. I’ll get to that later.
As a result, this also creates a huge liability for MERS. In addition to the people that MERS authorized to sign on their behalf. MERS can only act as a nominee for its members. It can only assign the mortgagee rights for its members. Furthermore, MERS had to know America’s Wholesale Lender was NOT and NEVER was a MERS member. MERS and it signatories should have known that AWL was NOT and NEVER was a New York corporation.
MERS and the hundreds of people who have signed as MERS executives could find themselves facing fraud lawsuits and MBS Trusts and Bank of America would then be left holding unenforceable mortgages.
Fake America’s Wholesale Lender LLC
A couple of scam artists incorporated a fake America’s Wholesale Lender in New York in 2008 after BofA acquired Countrywide Financial. Their goal was to score some free properties from the chaos of the financial crisis.
America's Wholesale Lender -NY Filing
This LLC has no connection to Countrywide or Bank of America. Dennis L. Bell and a group of real estate fraudsters filed this fake LLC with the state of New York. Bell and his friends hoped to cash in on the chaos of the foreclosure crisis. Their goal was to create bogus mortgage assignments and loan satisfactions to score free houses.
Bank of America sued Bell in 2012 after the bank discovered title fraud going on in California. BofA also alleged Bell had an extensive criminal record in Missouri. They also allege Bell had a long history of committing mortgage fraud. The bank also claims Bell teamed up with Jan Van Eck and Cheri B. English to record fraudulent reconveyances in California.
These reconveyances falsely released liens on California properties with mortgages originated by Countrywide Home Loans. In addition to filing fake lien satisfactions, the three fraudsters also filed bogus judgments in California state courts. These judgments purport to modify or cancel mortgages on California properties with Countrywide mortgages.
Bell admitted to the AWL scheme as a result of a lawsuit he filed against Van Eck. He sued Van Eck ironically for fraud in Federal Court in Connecticut. (America’s Wholesale Lender, Inc. v. Van Eck, Civil No. 11-cv-1493 (CFD) (TPS)). In the lawsuit and under oath, Bell admitted to the scheme.
You can read Bank of America’s lawsuit against the fake AWL below:
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