Wells Fargo's claim: It always verifies mortgage paperwork

Don't think so...

Wells Fargo says it has generally avoided the foreclosure paperwork scandal plaguing the nation’s banks because its employees personally review and verify every document that they sign. But a previously unpublished deposition details how that didn’t happen in at least one case. In the deposition [2] taken last summer, a bank employee admitted to submitting unverified documents to a federal bankruptcy court in northern Texas twice in the same case, even though she signed off that the documents, swearing that they were “true and correct.”


The employee said she “couldn’t guestimate [3]” how frequently she submitted court documents without personally verifying the information.

The new deposition is from the Chapter 13 bankruptcy case of Texas residents Frederico and Herelinda Guevara. In the deposition [4], a Wells Fargo employee named Tamara Savery said she twice submitted documents to the court about who owned the Guevaras’ loan without personally researching or reviewing [4] the underlying documents. She said she relied on the “expertise of others [4]” when signing the legal paperwork.

The deposition did not delve into Wells Fargo’s wider practices. But in other cases [5], Wells Fargo employees have said they signed numerous affidavits a day without first verifying the information.

More from Propublica.

Here is Tamara Savery's deposition. Click here.

Meet the other robo-signers:

• Jeffrey Stephan [4] is the GMAC employee whose deposition triggered the scandal. In a June 2010 deposition for a case in Maine, Stephan testified that he signed anywhere from 6,000 to 8,000—possibly even 10,000 [5]—foreclosure documents each month. Neither he nor his team [6] verified the information in these affidavits as accurate, and the affidavits were not signed in the presence of a notary [7], which is required for them to be used as evidence in court.




• Beth Ann Cottrell [8], a Chase employee, in a May 2010 deposition for a case in Florida, testified that she did not have her “own personal knowledge [9]” of the documents she was signing, but that she had “personal knowledge that my staff has personal knowledge [10].” She acknowledged that although she signed off on documents attesting that a plaintiff had the right to foreclose on a homeowner, she did not know [11] whether the statement was true. Cottrell also testified that when she received power of attorney [12] granting her authorization to do so, she had signed documents on behalf of other companies.



• Erica Johnson-Seck [13], an employee of OneWest Bank, testified for a case in Florida state court that she spent “not more than 30 seconds [14]” executing each document and did not read each one before she signed it. Instead, Johnson-Seck testified that she relied on an outside document-processing contractor, Lender Processing Services, to vet the information in the documents [15], and she said that the documents were not signed in the presence of a notary [16].



• Though Herman John Kennerty [17], an employee of Wells Fargo didn’t sign as many documents [18] as other robo-signers, in a May 2010 deposition taken for a case in state court in Seattle, he testified that he signed documents without checking anything but the dates [19]. He was also questioned about one of his employees, Xee Moua [18], who, according to The Financial Times was also a robo-signer [20] ($).

• A former legal assistant at the Law Offices of David J. Stern, Kelly Scott [21], testified about some of the practices at that firm, which is currently under investigation for fraudulent, “foreclosure mill” practices. In an October 2010 deposition, Scott testified that key documents necessary to proceed with a foreclosure would be missing from a case file, and then the paperwork would appear when needed [22]. Mistakes went uncorrected on the assumption that a judge wouldn’t notice [23]. Paralegals acted as notaries [24], often notarizing documents even before they were signed [25]. Then they’d be signed by the office manager of the foreclosure department, who “doesn’t review them [26].” Due to the volume of documents, that manager taught others to forge her signature [27] and allowed them to sign on her behalf. Files that weren’t processed correctly would be hidden from clients [28] who came to review the work. Scott also testified about Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s involvement with the law firm, noting that there was talk of a “quota,” and that Fannie and Freddie would push the firm to “pick up the speed [29].” As we’ve noted, the two government-controlled mortgage giants recently suspended business [1] with the firm.