Linda Green: The Original Robo Signer?

 by:  Peter J. Gallagher

In case you missed it, 60 Minutes re-aired a story last night called "The Next Housing Shock," which reports on the "robo signing" scandal that has plagued the mortgage markets in recent months.  (The term "robo signer" is never mentioned in the piece because it appears that it originally aired before the term was coined.)  Among the highlights are interviews with individuals who were paid $10 per hour to sit in a storefront boiler room where they were required to sign thousands of mortgage assignments per day so that banks could foreclose on the mortgages.  These individuals were identified on the assignments as vice presidents of the various banks that held the mortgages.  The name found on thousands of these documents was Linda Green, who was vice president of more than 20 banks at the same time.  Not surprisingly, the real Linda Green, who was a shipping clerk before she was hired as a robo signer and was never actually the vice president of any of these banks, did not sign all of the documents on her own.  Instead, the company behind the forgeries hired other people to sign her name too.  The reason they chose Linda Green as the name to use — it was short and easy to spell.  Although the story is more reflective than predictive at this point, some of the revelations are still shocking and help explain why many analysts don't see the foreclosure crisis ending any time soon.