This is the latest part in a series about the faces and lives of people impacted by nationwide mortgage and foreclosure fraud. Read the author's previous articles about homeowners in California, specifically Los Angeles, and Michigan.

I’ve been following foreclosure fraud since 2010, being personally impacted by it and then getting involved in foreclosure activism with people all around the country. It's hard to make a distinction about which state suffers the most, since there are still thousands of people losing their homes to foreclosure fraud every day.

However, based on statistics, Florida had the highest foreclosure rate in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2014. The state also had a "foreclosure king," David Stern, who is now disbarred by a Supreme Court decision for his failure to oversee employees accused of carrying out wrongful foreclosures.

Stern got to keep the millions of dollars he earned through illegal foreclosure proceedings, while people whose homes were stolen by his law office remain in disbelief – without any compensation for the crimes committed against them. Meanwhile, courts continue to turn away from defrauded homeowners who are still seeking justice. Florida foreclosure attorney Mark Stopa wrote on his blog about Mr. Stern’s disbarment:

“David Stern made hundreds of millions of dollars representing banks in foreclosure lawsuits throughout Florida. Not a decent living. Not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars. Now, The Florida Bar has spoken, and it seems clear Stern will never practice law again.

"This might sounds like justice for some – and many of my colleagues in the foreclosure defense arena are characterizing it as such. For me, though, this rings hollow.

"Take a look at the Report. For all of these misgivings, Stern is looking at paying less than $60,000. For you or me, that’s a lot of money, but when you’ve just made hundreds of millions of dollars, as Stern did, it’s pocket change. Where’s the justice in that?”

In response, homeowners who are deciding to speak up about their ordeal are the ones who are decidedly changing the foreclosure fraud battlefield. Here is a foreclosure fraud story from one of Florida’s families – all of whose stories are similar yet every family suffers in its own way, stripped of their American Dream which they spent years building:

J.S.: “My name is J.S. I am choosing to remain anonymous. Privacy is important to me and my husband, but getting our story out is more important than staying completely silent..."

"Newly married in 1989, my husband and I had our whole lives in front of us. I, a new RN and my husband a manager in a manufacturing plant, bought our first home in Hollywood, Florida, in 1991. As our family grew, with three kids, it was time to sell and move on.

"We were happy living in a rural-suburban area. Time went by quickly. One thing that we always did was pay our bills on time. We took pride in our credit score, which were 760 each. We were so proud when we needed a new car we could just “walk” off the lot with it. [I'm] not sure what happened, where everything went wrong. I actually believe it was President Obama telling Americans to apply for a Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) loan. When job loss occurred in our family, I was aware that we would qualify for that loan and I called Wells Fargo to inquire. They put us through the ringer. That is what started our tumble down the credit hole. Wells Fargo approved a forbearance agreement, while we submitted a HAMP application in 2009."

[HAMP had been introduced by the Obama administration as a tool to help homeowners keep their homes. It turned out that the yellow brick road led many into foreclosure disasters – a prolonged disaster that kept homeowners' hope alive while chipping away their savings, their equity, and ruining their credit scores. Americans were watching in disbelief while the servicers and banks didn’t comply with the HAMP requirements, continued with dual tracking (processing modifications and foreclosing at the same time), pushing homeowners towards in-house modifications even when they qualified for HAMP, and many other irregularities.]

”This is when the games began," continued J.S. "The forbearance ruined my credit score. Every fax I sent to Wells Fargo has not been received – that’s what their representatives claimed. Week after week, always [with] a two-week lag. Always something missing. Then I started my Internet research on “lost paper work” and I found Living Lies website, which led to Foreclosure Hamlet, and now Facebook. My search for answers brought many wonderful people in my life together with the answers and they helped me through the darkest moments of my life.

"In 2009 I was informed by a Wells Fargo representative that I may not be approved because someone moved my application out of the review folder from her computer! Their incompetence was limitless. Eventually I was approved for a modification, but it was more than my original mortgage. However, I wanted to save my house at all costs. At this time I had a good job. [But] after the BP oil spill my salary was cut in half and I re-applied for the HAMP loan in 2010.

"I was told by Wells Fargo that we had to be 90 days late before they would consider my HAMP loan application. At that time, I still had a great credit score, and now they were telling me to actually STOP PAYING MY MORTGAGE. I think that I literally freaked out then. I didn’t want to lose my home."

[One of the biggest traps by the servicers during the HAMP modification process was pushing homeowners into default without telling them that they would be reported by those same servicers to the credit agencies, thus ruining their credit.]

”Then," said J.S., "I started writing to every government entity including Florida AG Pam Bondi, Senator Marco Rubio, my local representatives. I did receive an interesting letter stating that FNM was my investor; meanwhile there are no recorded assignments for my mortgage, and I was placed into a stated income loan (stated income loans are the loans when borrowers only state their income on the application, without verifying the facts), which meant that I couldn’t actually afford this house. I have worked in the same profession for over 20 years and the mortgage broker didn’t complete income verification even though I sent her paycheck stubs. My accusations of Wells Fargo fraudulently putting us in the stated income instead of true income verification, through my letters to the government entities, produced a letter from them confirming it was true.

"After reluctantly not paying my mortgage for 90 days, I was able to apply for a HAMP loan. Again every fax I sent was lost. I didn’t know what to do anymore. My frustration reached its limits and I realized that next time I will FedEx my documents, so they can’t lose it, since there will be a tracking number as a proof of delivery. The new HAMP application letter stated that paper work was due on or before Feb. 14, 2011. I gathered everything and sent on Feb. 3, 2011. It was received on Feb. 4, 2011, and signed via FedEx tracking. On Feb. 16, 2014, I received a letter from Wells Fargo that my documents were not received. WHAT? I called them right away. They say they never received my package. After I cried over the phone, their representative sounded very upset and finally told me, 'We have some of your documents, but things are missing.'

"I called FedEx and spoke to the supervisor of the delivery person and she tried to call Wells Fargo but I was told no one would answer the phone and she never contacted me again. I had no choice but to wait for foreclosure proceedings. They obviously wanted to give me the run around. I was served Dec. 27, 2011. I was ready.

"We retained a lawyer and our two-year court battle started. My first judge was doing his job properly. He had many foreclosure cases and told the banks in the past not to come into his courtroom without documents. This judge immediately ordered discovery in our case. Wells Fargo asked for more time and it was granted. In the meantime, the judge moved to Ocala, leaving my family to the wolves of Wall Street. During that period, Florida approved retired judges to the foreclosure circuit. The retired judges – non-elected retired judges with no accountability – gave more time."

[Florida’s foreclosure courts have been infamous for their rocket-docket practice. The state's Attorney General, Pam Bondi, allocated money from the National Mortgage Settlement – money the banks paid to the state attorney generals to stop their investigation into mortgage foreclosure fraud – to these courts to faster steal homes from the people without giving them a fair chance of due process. For example, the Massachusetts AG is using a portion of this settlement to provide a legal representation in foreclosure fraud cases, while Florida's AG sided with the banks giving a green light to the state’s judicial system to ignore the facts and fast-track their foreclosure cases.]

Finally, concluded J.S., “Our case was dismissed on Oct. 31, 2013, due to the diligent work of our lawyer. Now, talk about right and left hands. It was WFBNA (Wells Fargo Bank National Association) that foreclosed, but WFHM (Wells Fargo Home Mortgage) has not once acknowledged the foreclosure. It seems to me they are next to put their hands in the cookie jar."

J.S.'s family has been lucky to retain one of the very successful foreclosure lawyers in Florida. Many families are not in that position, either due to lack of funds or lack of lawyers who understand this foreclosure fraud maze. I contacted a foreclosure attorney, Evan Rosen, also from Florida, after I saw his offer for pro-bono services. Here is what he told me:

“It is a case by case basis. We want to help people and if there is a reasonably good chance that we can, we’ll take the case. We want people who have preserved certain defenses, who have not been legally defaulted due to their not timely filing an ‘answer’ to the complaint, and we want those who have been turned away from other lawyers due to lack of funds to hire them.” People can contact Attorney Rosen at 1-855-55-ROSEN

Hopefully many other lawyers in the nation will follow attorney Rosen’s example. For justice to prevail, all of us must unite our efforts and do our best.

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