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Vincent Padois, head tutor at the Pierre and Marie Curie University who teaches robotics and is babysitting the Paris ICub, makes a demonstration with ICub robot, a ?hybrid embodied cognitive system for a humanoid robot" about 1 metre (3.2 feet) high, at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris September 4, 2009. Six versions of ICub exist in laboratories across Europe, where scientists are painstakingly tweaking its electronic brain to make it capable of learning, just like a human child and hoping it will learn how to adapt its behaviour to changing circumstances, offering new insights into the development of human consciousness. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

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    Websites offer foreclosure victims comic relief

    NEW YORK
    Fri Jul 18, 2008 6:06am EDT
    Residents watch from their porch next to an abandoned, foreclosed and boarded-up property in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, May 13, 2008. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

    NEW YORK (Reuters) - Borrowers who have lost their homes, thousands of dollars and their good credit ratings can at least have a laugh thanks to real estate agent and Web site creator Lisa LaShawn.

    Technology  |  Housing Market

    LaShawn is taking aim at what she considers predatory lenders responsible for a wave of U.S. home foreclosures with the websites www.IHateMortgageBrokers.com and www.AngryMobTshirts.com.

    Visitors to the sites can sign an online petition demanding better regulation of the mortgage industry or buy T-shirts with messages such as "Beware of the mortgage broker" and other more vulgar options.

    In a sign that mortgage brokers are the new lawyers -- the professionals everyone loves to hate -- one design says "I hate lawyers" but with "lawyers" crossed out and replaced by "mortgage brokers."

    "Many foreclosure victims were duped into bad loans made by unethical mortgage brokers. They pushed adjustable-rate mortgages like candy without warning people about the hidden pitfalls, like negative amortization and prepayment penalties," LaShawn said.

    "Millions of people were suddenly stuck with exploding mortgages that skyrocket after the teaser period is over."

    LaShawn, who worked with mortgage brokers during her years in the real estate industry, said borrowers were lured into adjustable-rate mortgages and falsely reassured they could easily refinance by brokers who were paid higher commissions on those types of loans.

    Real estate data group RealtyTrac last week reported there were 252,363 foreclosure filings on U.S. homes in June, down three percent from May, but up 53 percent from June 2007.

    (Reporting by Nancy Leinfuss, additional reporting by Patrick Rucker, editing by Daniel Trotta and Jackie Frank)
    Technology
    Housing Market


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