sometimes I think they're TRYING to cause a massive series of riots and get their heads chopped off in the town square...

Ladies and Gentlemen, put your hands together and give a big round of applause for our newest contestants on the smash hit reality show:

"Who's Going To Be First Up Against The Wall When The Revolution Comes?"

It's one thing if one or two people thought, "Hey, you know what would be fun?"
It's another when obviously a good portion of the firm agreed.
Sick.

Therion: Ladies and Gentlemen, put your hands together and give a big round of applause for our newest contestants on the smash hit reality show:

"Who's Going To Be First Up Against The Wall When The Revolution Comes?"

The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation?

If they were dressed up as just homeless people, that would be bad enough, but it does appear that they are specifically mocking the people they go against:

In one, two Baum employees are dressed like homeless people. One is holding a bottle of liquor. The other has a sign around her neck that reads: "3rd party squatter. I lost my home and I was never served." My source said that "I was never served" is meant to mock "the typical excuse" of the homeowner trying to evade a foreclosure proceeding.

A second picture shows a coffin with a picture of a woman whose eyes have been cut out. A sign on the coffin reads: "Rest in Peace. Crazy Susie." The reference is to Susan Chana Lask, a lawyer who had filed a class-action suit against Steven J. Baum - and had posted a YouTube video denouncing the firm's foreclosure practices. "She was a thorn in their side," said my source.



Anyone who works for this firm needs to seriously re-evaluate the path their life has taken. You have chosen a very dark path.

jake_lex: Anyone who works for this firm needs to seriously re-evaluate the path their life has taken. You have chosen a very dark path.

in my experience, people like this won't change until something bad happens to them. And even then, sometimes they don't turn around and fight to get their souls back.

Karma is gonna be a b*tch for these f*ckers.

/w.t.f.
//you gotta be kidding me

Wow, and here I thought that people who do nothing but foreclosures on homes for a living were helpful, compassionate people. I am so disillusioned.

Weaver95: jake_lex: Anyone who works for this firm needs to seriously re-evaluate the path their life has taken. You have chosen a very dark path.

in my experience, people like this won't change until something bad happens to them. And even then, sometimes they don't turn around and fight to get their souls back.

No, they just grow bitter and blame the world usually. But some can be redeemed.

vartian: Weaver95: jake_lex: Anyone who works for this firm needs to seriously re-evaluate the path their life has taken. You have chosen a very dark path.

in my experience, people like this won't change until something bad happens to them. And even then, sometimes they don't turn around and fight to get their souls back.

No, they just grow bitter and blame the world usually. But some can be redeemed.

Most, however, need a wooden stake through the heart, their heads removed, and their mouths filled with garlic and sewn shut.

WhyteRaven74: Oh it's lawyers? Easy punishment, just disbar all of them.



I was thinking chain the doors shut and set the building on fire.

It's just a Halloween party. It's funny.

"3rd party squatter: I lost my home & was NEVER served." That's funny.

Ah. The threadshiatter cometh.

SkinnyHead: It's just a Halloween party. It's funny.

you should go down to the ghetto and wander around dark alleyways. I'm sure you'll find TONS of stuff to laugh at while you wander around in the dark.

You'd think a Halloween party near Buffalo would at least have some costumes that could be considered Erie...

But in any event, fark them. Fark them all. #OccupyBuffalo should start an encampment on this firm's front lawn.

Therion: Ladies and Gentlemen, put your hands together and give a big round of applause for our newest contestants on the smash hit reality show:

"Who's Going To Be First Up Against The Wall When The Revolution Comes?"

Can we choose the method of execution? I'm thinking starving bear high on angel dust while the prisoners are wrapped in raw steak and within 2 feet of the bears cubs.

Weaver95: SkinnyHead: It's just a Halloween party. It's funny.

you should go down to the ghetto and wander around dark alleyways. I'm sure you'll find TONS of stuff to laugh at while you wander around in the dark.

Cut the melodrama, Weaver. It's just some officer workers having some fun at a Halloween party.

SkinnyHead: "3rd party squatter: I lost my home & was NEVER served." That's funny.

no kidding! check this one out...



"Will work for food" LOL! COMEDY GOLD!!!!

just imagine if these people worked in a hospital! every Halloween they could be cancer kids with shaved heads and signs that say things like "I just want to live. why won't baby jesus save me?" talk about "rotflmao"!!! am I right???

I think more of the 99% should own guns.

What the Costumes Reveal

By JOE NOCERA
Op-Ed Columnist
October 28, 2011

On Friday, the law firm of Steven J. Baum threw a Halloween party. The firm, which is located near Buffalo, is what is commonly referred to as a "foreclosure mill" firm, meaning it represents banks and mortgage servicers as they attempt to foreclose on homeowners and evict them from their homes. Steven J. Baum is, in fact, the largest such firm in New York; it represents virtually all the giant mortgage lenders, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

The party is the firm's big annual bash. Employees wear Halloween costumes to the office, where they party until around noon, and then return to work, still in costume. I can't tell you how people dressed for this year's party, but I can tell you about last year's.

That's because a former employee of Steven J. Baum recently sent me snapshots of last year's party. In an e-mail, she said that she wanted me to see them because they showed an appalling lack of compassion toward the homeowners - invariably poor and down on their luck - that the Baum firm had brought foreclosure proceedings against.

When we spoke later, she added that the snapshots are an accurate representation of the firm's mind-set. "There is this really cavalier attitude," she said. "It doesn't matter that people are going to lose their homes." Nor does the firm try to help people get mortgage modifications; the pressure, always, is to foreclose. I told her I wanted to post the photos on The Times's Web site so that readers could see them. She agreed, but asked to remain anonymous because she said she fears retaliation.

Let me describe a few of the photos. In one, two Baum employees are dressed like homeless people. One is holding a bottle of liquor. The other has a sign around her neck that reads: "3rd party squatter. I lost my home and I was never served." My source said that "I was never served" is meant to mock "the typical excuse" of the homeowner trying to evade a foreclosure proceeding.

A second picture shows a coffin with a picture of a woman whose eyes have been cut out. A sign on the coffin reads: "Rest in Peace. Crazy Susie." The reference is to Susan Chana Lask, a lawyer who had filed a class-action suit against Steven J. Baum - and had posted a YouTube video denouncing the firm's foreclosure practices. "She was a thorn in their side," said my source.

A third photograph shows a corner of Baum's office decorated to look like a row of foreclosed homes. Another shows a sign that reads, "Baum Estates" - needless to say, it's also full of foreclosed houses. Most of the other pictures show either mock homeless camps or mock foreclosure signs - or both. My source told me that not every Baum department used the party to make fun of the troubled homeowners they made their living suing. But some clearly did. The adjective she'd used when she sent them to me - "appalling" - struck me as exactly right.

These pictures are hardly the first piece of evidence that the Baum firm treats homeowners shabbily - or that it uses dubious legal practices to do so. It is under investigation by the New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman. It recently agreed to pay $2 million to resolve an investigation by the Department of Justice into whether the firm had "filed misleading pleadings, affidavits, and mortgage assignments in the state and federal courts in New York." (In the press release announcing the settlement, Baum acknowledged only that "it occasionally made inadvertent errors.")

MFY Legal Services, which defends homeowners, and Harwood Feffer, a large class-action firm, have filed a class-action suit claiming that Steven J. Baum has consistently failed to file certain papers that are necessary to allow for a state-mandated settlement conference that can lead to a modification. Judge Arthur Schack of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn once described Baum's foreclosure filings as "operating in a parallel mortgage universe, unrelated to the real universe." (My source told me that one Baum employee dressed up as Judge Schack at a previous Halloween party.)

I saw the firm operate up close when I wrote several columns about Lilla Roberts, a 73-year-old homeowner who had spent three years in foreclosure hell. Although she had a steady income and was a good candidate for a modification, the Baum firm treated her mercilessly.

When I called a press spokesman for Steven J. Baum to ask about the photographs, he sent me a statement a few hours later. "It has been suggested that some employees dress in ... attire that mocks or attempts to belittle the plight of those who have lost their homes," the statement read. "Nothing could be further from the truth." It described this column as "another attempt by The New York Times to attack our firm and our work."

I encourage you to look at the photographs with this column on the Web. Then judge for yourself the veracity of Steven J. Baum's denial.

/I would like to apologize to the NYT for stealing the article, but I got a "log in" on the return visit. I recommend farkers log in or register. Nocera's article has links to the background, and the Times is worth the free registration..

//Hey, banks: Are these really the only guys who do this? Doesn't Baum have some competitors out there with a little more compassion--you know, the ones not so eager to saddle your banks with houses invariably gutted with a vengeful fury? Wouldn't you rather keep getting a little money and keep these folks in their houses then create a resale whirlpool of neighborhood property values and be reduced to pin-stripe slumlords for the next 20 years? It's just shortsighted.

Therion: Ladies and Gentlemen, put your hands together and give a big round of applause for our newest contestants on the smash hit reality show:
"Who's Going To Be First Up Against The Wall When The Revolution Comes?"

...I'm suddenly finding the notion of RealiTV a lot more appealing.

WhyteRaven74: Easy punishment, just disbar

Can you say "oxymoron"?

coco ebert: /w.t.f.
//you gotta be kidding me

And have you ever encountered Dr. Bob Altemeyer's research?

This looks like a job for:

Baryogenesis: Then they call all get together with some insurance claims departments and make fun of those poor schmucks who get denied treatment. Haha, go be poor somewhere else!

the most lulz worthy party of all time.

rev. dave: serious humiliation of these people

They are incapable of being humiliated. They simply do not care what peons like you or me think.

SkinnyHead: It's just a Halloween party. It's funny.

You're a f*cking idiot. Ignore is too good for you.

/subby

Uncle Wiggly: What the Costumes Reveal

By JOE NOCERA
Op-Ed Columnist
October 28, 2011

On Friday, the law firm of Steven J. Baum threw a Halloween party. The firm, which is located near Buffalo, is what is commonly referred to as a "foreclosure mill" firm, meaning it represents banks and mortgage servicers as they attempt to foreclose on homeowners and evict them from their homes. Steven J. Baum is, in fact, the largest such firm in New York; it represents virtually all the giant mortgage lenders, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

The party is the firm's big annual bash. Employees wear Halloween costumes to the office, where they party until around noon, and then return to work, still in costume. I can't tell you how people dressed for this year's party, but I can tell you about last year's.

That's because a former employee of Steven J. Baum recently sent me snapshots of last year's party. In an e-mail, she said that she wanted me to see them because they showed an appalling lack of compassion toward the homeowners - invariably poor and down on their luck - that the Baum firm had brought foreclosure proceedings against.

When we spoke later, she added that the snapshots are an accurate representation of the firm's mind-set. "There is this really cavalier attitude," she said. "It doesn't matter that people are going to lose their homes." Nor does the firm try to help people get mortgage modifications; the pressure, always, is to foreclose. I told her I wanted to post the photos on The Times's Web site so that readers could see them. She agreed, but asked to remain anonymous because she said she fears retaliation.

Let me describe a few of the photos. In one, two Baum employees are dressed like homeless people. One is holding a bottle of liquor. The other has a sign around her neck that reads: "3rd party squatter. I lost my home and I was never served." My source said that "I was never served" is meant to mock "the typical excuse" of the homeowner trying to evade a foreclosure proceeding.

A second picture shows a coffin with a picture of a woman whose eyes have been cut out. A sign on the coffin reads: "Rest in Peace. Crazy Susie." The reference is to Susan Chana Lask, a lawyer who had filed a class-action suit against Steven J. Baum - and had posted a YouTube video denouncing the firm's foreclosure practices. "She was a thorn in their side," said my source.

A third photograph shows a corner of Baum's office decorated to look like a row of foreclosed homes. Another shows a sign that reads, "Baum Estates" - needless to say, it's also full of foreclosed houses. Most of the other pictures show either mock homeless camps or mock foreclosure signs - or both. My source told me that not every Baum department used the party to make fun of the troubled homeowners they made their living suing. But some clearly did. The adjective she'd used when she sent them to me - "appalling" - struck me as exactly right.

These pictures are hardly the first piece of evidence that the Baum firm treats homeowners shabbily - or that it uses dubious legal practices to do so. It is under investigation by the New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman. It recently agreed to pay $2 million to resolve an investigation by the Department of Justice into whether the firm had "filed misleading pleadings, affidavits, and mortgage assignments in the state and federal courts in New York." (In the press release announcing the settlement, Baum acknowledged only that "it occasionally made inadvertent errors.")

MFY Legal Services, which defends homeowners, and Harwood Feffer, a large class-action firm, have filed a class-action suit claiming that Steven J. Baum has consistently failed to file certain papers that are necessary to allow for a state-mandated settlement conference that can lead to a modification. Judge Arthur Schack of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn once described Baum's foreclosure filings as "operating in a parallel mortgage universe, unrelated to the real universe." (My source told me that one Baum employee dressed ...

Thanks dude. I never get the sign up for NY Times, but this is helpful for those that do.