Business ethics again....

[ProblemAgain]

Bank of America Paid Bonuses to Foreclose: Lawsuit

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 Published: Monday, 17 Jun 2013 | 11:31 AM ET

By: John W. Schoen | Economics Reporter

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Bank of America routinely denied qualified borrowers a chance to modify their loans to more affordable terms and paid cash bonuses to bank staffers for pushing homeowners into foreclosure, according to affidavits filed last week in a Massachusetts lawsuit.

"We were told to lie to customers," said Simone Gordon, who worked in the bank's loss mitigation department until February 2012. "Site leaders regularly told us that the more we delayed the HAMP [loan] modification process, the more fees Bank of America would collect."

In sworn testimony, six former employees describe what they saw behind the scenes of an often opaque process that has frustrated homeowners, their attorneys and housing counselors.

They describe systematic efforts to undermine the program by routinely denying loan modifications to qualified applicants, withholding reviews of completed applications, steering applicants to costlier "in-house" loans and paying bonuses to employees based on the number of new foreclosures they initiated.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100818866?__source=yahoo|finance|headline|headline|story&par=yahoo&doc=100818866|Bank%20of%20America%20Paid%20Bonu

[ProblemAgain]

Pa. McDonald's franchise sued over payroll cards

McDonald's franchise is sued in Pa. over fee-laden debit card used to pay employees

Associated Press – 5 hrs ago

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WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) -- A single mother who worked briefly at a northeastern Pennsylvania McDonald's franchise is suing the owners after she said she was given a fee-laden debit card and told that she must use it to access her earnings.

A lawyer filed a lawsuit Thursday in Luzerne County on behalf of Natalie Gunshannon and other employees, The Citizens' Voice (http://bit.ly/12QuR6T) and the Times Leader of Wilkes-Barre reported (http://bit.ly/12DELaJ).

"I'm looking for the pay I am owed and for them to understand there has to be an option," Gunshannon, 27, told the Citizens' Voice.

Gunshannon was hired April 24 at the McDonald's in Shavertown and worked for a month before quitting. She was given her first paycheck and, along with it, the debit card. She said she did not sign the debit card or enroll in the payroll system because she believed the fees would reduce her future earnings to below minimum wage.

According to the lawsuit, the J.P. Morgan Chase payroll card carries fees for numerous transactions. They include a $1.50 minimum charge for an ATM withdrawal, $5 for an over-the-counter cash withdrawal, $1 to check the balance, 75 cents per online bill payment and $15 to replace a lost or stolen card.

State law entitles employees to choose to be paid by options including check or cash, said the lawyer, Mike Cefalo.

The lawsuit seeks damages against the franchise owners, Albert and Carol Mueller, who own 15 other McDonald's locations throughout northeastern Pennsylvania, and accuses them of illegally padding their profits with the payroll card system. McDonald's was not named as a defendant.

In a statement to the Times Leader, the Muellers said they value their employees and want to provide the best possible work environment for them.

State officials have endorsed payroll cards as a legal form of wage payment, according to the American Payroll Association, the Citizens' Voice reported.

But in a 2008 letter to the trade association, the state Department of Labor and Industry advised employers to get an employee's permission before paying wages with payroll cards or through direct deposit, the newspaper reported.

[ProblemAgain]

U.S. Seizes 14 7-Eleven Stores in Immigration Raids

By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM and MOSI SECRET

Published: June 17, 2013

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Federal authorities seized 14 7-Eleven stores on Long Island and in Virginia early Monday, charging nine owners and managers with harboring and hiring dozens of illegal immigrants and paying them using sham Social Security numbers, officials said.

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Michael Nagle for The New York Times

Homeland Security officers entered a 7-Eleven in Islip Terrace, N.Y., on Monday.

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn were also investigating 40 other 7-Eleven franchises in New York City and elsewhere, in one of the largest criminal immigrant employment investigations ever conducted by the Justice and Homeland Security Departments, officials said.

The franchises split their profits with the 7-Eleven parent corporation, which handles the store payrolls, and prosecutors were seeking $30 million in forfeiture from the stores and the corporate parent. In addition to seizing 10 7-Eleven stores in New York and 4 in Virginia, the authorities seized five houses in New York.

The raids come at a time when Washington is embroiled in an intense debate over an overhaul of the nation’s immigration system, including stronger enforcement at the borders and in workplaces.

The charges and two indictments were announced at a news conference on Monday by Loretta E. Lynch, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, and James T. Hayes, who is in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s office of investigations in New York City, along with officials from the New York State Police and the Suffolk County Police Department.

Through the scheme, officials said, the defendants hired more than 50 illegal immigrants, provided them with more than 20 identities stolen from United States citizens, including children and dead people, put them up at houses owned by the defendants and stole substantial portions of their wages.

“From their 7-Eleven stores the defendants dispensed wire fraud and identity theft, along with Slurpees and hot dogs,” Ms. Lynch said. “In bedroom communities across Long Island and Virginia, the defendants not only systematically employed illegal immigrants but concealed their crimes by raiding the cradle and grave to steal the identify of children and even the dead.”

Ms. Lynch said the defendants “ruthlessly exploited their immigrant employees,” forcing them to live in unregulated boardinghouses and “creating a modern-day plantation system.”

The charges against the owners and managers — eight men and a woman — included wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft.

Many of those charged were of Pakistani descent and it was believed that most, if not all, of the illegal immigrants were also from Pakistan, officials said.

In one instance, an employee of one franchise was paid using the Social Security number of a former 7-Eleven employee, a person who had not worked for the store for 10 years and who had been the target of collection efforts by the Internal Revenue Service for much of that time because of the reported payments to the illegal immigrant, officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/18/nyregion/us-seizes-14-7-eleven-st...