Activists bare teeth over foreclosures

It's called a "rank 'em and spank 'em."

Nominally, it's a meeting. But that sounds too polite, longtime ESOP volunteer Barbara Anderson says. It's a venting session, about as calm as a trading pit. At a rank 'em in January 2006, ESOP organizers declared Countrywide their villain of choice.

A month later, they "hit" Garmone's house in suburban Painesville.

"Please call Mike at home ... and tell him to do the right thing: produce his boss to a meeting with ESOP!" the group urged its followers.

ESOP didn't want just any boss. They demanded Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide's chairman and CEO.

They got a meeting with a pair of executives at the Cleveland office of the NAACP, in May 2006. After 20 minutes, ESOP negotiators walked out because Countrywide's representatives would not sign a pledge to negotiate.

Countrywide will not answer questions about its dealings with ESOP.

"We want that relationship (with ESOP) to continue to improve so together we can help more borrowers," Rick Simon, a company spokesman, said. "Going back to the past doesn't help those borrowers."

But letters Countrywide executives sent to ESOP make clear the company's sharp disagreement with the activists' criticism and its irritation with their tactics.

Temporary standdown
ESOP organizers and Countrywide executives met again in the fall of 2006. The activists also sat down with officials from the federal agencies that oversee housing, trade and banking to voice concerns about Countrywide.

But the group was having trouble convincing local officials that Countrywide was the villain they said it was, Seifert says. The campaign moved to the back burner as ESOP negotiated an agreement with another lending firm.

The standdown, though, was temporary.

ESOP organizers got Mozilo's personal phone number and instructed homeowners to call him in the middle of the night.

They flooded faxes at Countrywide offices with hundreds of copies of identical forms detailing Cleveland homeowners' problem loans.

They posted signs on the front of abandoned homes owned by the lender: "Countrywide's idea of the American Dream! Tell their executives what you think!"

Agreements to a point
In April 2007, ESOP ferried two dozen volunteers to a Countrywide office in suburban Woodmere. They walked into the tiny office, located on the town's main shopping strip, throwing plastic sharks, handing out mock foreclosure notices and demanding a meeting with Mozilo, then left when local police arrived.

"We strongly believe that confrontational tactics and deliberate misinformation are not the way to build productive relationships that help Cleveland's homeowners," a Countrywide executive wrote afterward.

In June, a pair of Countrywide executives came to ESOP's offices to meet with borrowers, promising to work with individual borrowers but again refusing to sign the memorandum.

Nine days later, ESOP showed up at a Countrywide office in the University Circle neighborhood, sharks in hand.

In late July, an ESOP regiment headed to Hudson, an outlying suburb, and tried to shove their way into the office of the lawyer representing Countrywide in its Cleveland foreclosures. The company that had been selling the group its plastic sharks heard about their tactics and cut off the supply.

Countrywide, too, was taking notice and it was not happy.

"During efforts to physically force your way into the office, one of the firm employees was actually bitten by an ESOP member," Countrywide's chief counsel, Sandor Samuels, wrote afterward. "We will not enter into relationships with organizations that desire to subject our employees, contractors and Chief Executive Officer to harassment."

Hopeful to move forward
Countrywide insisted it was cooperating, saying it had restructured dozens of loans ESOP had brought to its attention.

But the activists said that was not nearly enough, that it was seeking more than piecemeal solutions.

Then, in October, a letter on gold-embossed stationery arrived.

"I am hopeful, for the sake of these families, that ESOP and Countrywide will move forward and work together in a constructive manner to find workable solutions to our customers' issues," it said.

It offered a meeting with the lender's senior management. It was signed: "Sincerely, Angelo R. Mozilo."

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