Mr Tepper is utterly wrong regarding his spin on the borrowers and brokers. I am a criminologist specialising in white collar crime. Mr Tepper rang me prior to the Property Bubble & Collapse story on 26 Jan, as he was a friend of the 60 Mins Reporter. This story is not about the Brokers. Tepper admits he has bet short. ASIC Commissioners and I, do not always agree on issues of Consumer Protection, however on the issue of Broker honesty we do agree. There may be 3% rogues in this industry but 97% are doing the right thing. In any case,common sense would tell the reasonable person, you would never get 97% of any industry to blatantly commit a criminal act. ASIC suggest it’s a preposterous notion to say otherwise.
Mr Tepper has opened up a Pandora's Box and on the plus side he has created the narrative: Did the Brokers lie or did the Banks teach the Brokers to lie on sub prime loans? Tepper appears to be guided by the American Bankers' smear campaign to demonize borrowers and brokers and call the loans Liar Loans. However Borrowers I have spoken to in Ireland New Zealand, the UK, America and other countries, tell a different story. Once again the Bankers hid the fraudulent documents from view and the bank copies do not match up with the broker copies as if in a sophisticated crime novel worthy of Hollywood.
The Australian experience, backed by hard documented evidence shows these are not Liar Loans and even more importantly, demonstrates Mr Tepper's idea of creating a story to suit his own thoughts and reasons for doing so. Is that what happened? Why did Mr Tepper ring me the moment he stepped off the plane? He realised of course the collectivism of the borrowers support group produces unprecedented evidence which did not fit the preferred story.
The Borrowers did not lie on the forms, the fraud was hidden for years. The borrowers discovered the fraud via our work in 2001, and reported the matter to the Police, the Federal Police (AFP), ASIC, APRA, the AOFM (re the fake RMBS packs), the Media and last but not least The Australian Parliament in hundreds and hundreds of submissions and letters, causing many short term Inquiries in the Senate.
Why would borrowers complain so loudly if they had lied???????????? Think about it. They discovered the fraud and reported it. The Australian Tax Office discovered this in 2004, completed a report and then did not release the heralded report as I explained they had seen the view from wrong glasses. The ATO Senior Investigators agreed and immediately agreed and canned the report on orders from Commissioner Carmody (banks wrongly blamed the borrowers) there was no money to claw back for the ATO so they passed the file back to ASIC how did little else with the revelations except ping a few obligatory hapless brokers.
I have spoken to over 40 Brokers in Australia and New Zealand, during the past ten years, and told Jonathan Tepper what the outcome was of this valuable research. He chose to ignore that advice, no doubt guided by some other agenda. I doubt 20 brokers in Blacktown would say such a thing to a blow in from London, but I certainly do not believe (from experience) every broker in that district taught people to lie on the forms.
It’s a criminal act to lie on bank forms. Brokers have stated: if we did that, the Aussie customer would see us as cheats and not sign up.
Australians are basically honest. Most would be horrified at such a suggestion. Brokers comment on this and say “we would never get any customers if we did that!” Blacktown Police should be on the alert if that is true. I expect there will be a Royal Commission into the banks and I will stand as a key witness in front of the Commissioner and deliver bundles of case evidence on how the brokers were duped by their employers - the banks.
Lenders are busy blaming the borrowers and the brokers, yet they were in fact the engineers, manufacturers and architects of one criminal faulty product: LOW DOC LOANS. This is why this Australian Banker Scandal story is gaining momentum.
Australian Bankers acting as a Cartel, utilised the exact same paperwork, same procedures, same modus operandi, same unethical and unconscionable treatment of loan processing, en masse. The bankers developed the target of ARIPs Asset Rich and Income Poor. It as a blatant bank grab for elderly people's assets - those persons who had no debt. Yes, the bubble is on the way and the property market will burst. The experts simply do not know when. The consensus is within two years. Then the truth can be told, but by then we will suffer the same fate as the American experience in the GFC: we shall see 10% of the population who ten years ago owned their own home and were debt free and are now homeless.
One million decent Australian citizens scammed by a corrupt banking system. Is that OK with you?