Political Quotes

“As demonstrated in these cases, the people soliciting these loans have won their trust and confidence, and the homeowners are reluctant to believe that they have been so ruthlessly taken in. Just this morning the Washington Post reported that the Federal Trade Commission sued the Associates, a lending unit of Citigroup, for its predatory lending practices. This is not just an occasional storefront operation. The growth of these predatory loans tells us we are dealing with a national phenomenon. This is what they said at the FTC about this group from Citigroup called Associates: "They hid essential information from consumers, misrepresented loan terms, flipped loans [repeatedly offering to consolidate debt into home loans] and packed optional fees to raise the costs of the loans," said Jodie Bernstein, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. The practices, she said, "primarily victimized . . . the most vulnerable--hardworking homeowners who had to borrow to meet emergency needs and often had no other access to capital."”