Abigail Field’s latest article is a must read. Forget the energizer bunny, this just keeps going and going…it does not stop.

from DailyFinance

When an LPS client has a mortgage that goes into default, Lofton explains, LPS starts managing the loan. In order to do that, the appropriate LPS employees are given login information for the bank’s database. As a security measure, each login is unique. That login grants access to the bank’s entire database of current and defaulted loans, so that the employee can address whatever problem exists. For example, if a payment that should have been applied to a defaulted mortgage was accidentally credited to a current mortgage, the LPS employee needs access to the current mortgage to fix the error.

When an employee can’t fix or reconcile data in an account, she is supposed to enlist the help of her supervisor, and if needed, her supervisor’s supervisor. Each manager also has unique login information, and each bank apparently has additional security protocols that LPS employees are supposed to follow. If the employees and supervisors were following the rules, all would be relatively well. But according to Lofton, they were not:

“…109. …most of the [LPS] Associate Team members had gained unauthorized access to the logins and passwords of their team associates and supervisors for all of the bank servicers’ computers.

110. With this unauthorized access to the Bank’s computers, the [LPS] associates could go into the banks computer files and manipulate the data….

112. I was particularly concerned that during “crunch” times …Team Associates were cutting corners….

116. When an employee cut corners, the employee left out one or more steps that should have been performed and had to make something up.

117. The problem caused by cutting corners might not come to light until six months down the road when an attorney asks questions about the billing record.”

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