NC Deed Registry Official Calls Paperwork Robosigned By Phony Bank VPs "A Ticking Time Bomb" As 1000s Of Dubious Docs Discovered Littering His Office

In Greensboro, North Carolina, the Burlington News Times reports:

• Guilford County Register of Deeds Jeff Thigpen says he has found thousands of examples of apparent fraud in local mortgage documents from major banks such as Wells Fargo and Bank of America.
• His ongoing investigation has so far turned up 4,500 "highly suspicious" mortgage and other loan documents. They feature apparently forged signatures from fictitious bank vice presidents, he said. The signatures are produced in "mortgage mills" contracted by the banks, Thigpen said, where documents can be falsified by the hundreds.
• Representatives of Wells Fargo and Bank of America didn't return calls Monday but have said previously that any such fraud is the fault of contract companies such as DocX, a Georgia-based company that a number of banks hired to process loan documentation.

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• Thigpen said there is now a national epidemic of foreclosures in which people can't tell who actually owns their loan. Many homes are foreclosed on using the sort of suspicious documents he's now turning up, Thigpen said.
• "But there's another problem, even for those who aren't foreclosed," Thigpen said. "When people try to get another loan or mortgage, what are the chances they'll be approved when the fraud attached to a (borrower's) previous loan comes out? It won't be their fault, but they'll pay for it."
• "This is a ticking time bomb," Thigpen said.
• One of those affected by such a forgery: Guilford County Commissioner Billy Yow. Thigpen said his investigation turned up a loan Yow paid off in 2007. The bank vice president who signed off on the certificate of satisfaction is one of a handful of aliases Thigpen said he's found signed with dozens of different signatures.

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• Thigpen said while looking into mortgage documentation last month he was contacted by Lynn Szymoniak, an attorney and forgery expert who has trained FBI agents. Szymoniak was recently featured on the news program "60 Minutes," where she talked about uncovering cases of fraud while fighting her own home foreclosure. Szymoniak inspired Thigpen to look into similar fraud in Guilford County.

For the story, see Guilford official: Mortgage fraud 'a ticking time bomb'.