Housing Activists Express Displeasure With Countrywide Exec

In Cleveland, Ohio, The Associated Press recently recounted a February, 2006 incident in which a group of over 40 consumer activists went to the home of a regional vice president at Countrywide Financial Corp. to express their displeasure with him and his company's home loans:

• Folks on Humphrey Hill Drive were still waking up on the icy Saturday morning the shark hunters came to town. They rounded the suburban traffic circle in a pair of rented school buses after a half-hour ride from far more modest neighborhoods, rumbling to a stop at the Garmone family's driveway. Forty-two caffeinated Clevelanders piled out, their leaders carrying bullhorns.

• Their quarry, Mike Garmone — a regional vice president at Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation's largest mortgage lender — didn't answer his door. So they deployed, ringing bells at the big homes with three-car garages, handing out accusatory fliers and lambasting Garmone and his company's loans. Before departing, they left their calling card — thousands of 2 1/2-inch plastic sharks — flung across Garmone's frozen flower beds, up into the gutters, littering the doorstep.

For more, see Activists Bare Teeth Over Foreclosures.

Go here, Go here and Go here for more on recent Countrywide problems with consumers.