Truth – Lies & Parody

Joel Bander victim Daniel De Leon speaks out against Bander and being scammed by Bander Law Firm.

CONTROVERSIAL lawyer Atty. Joel Bander has just filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection for his law firm, the Bander Law Firm. The subject of so many complaints, primarily from homeowners who hired his services to “Sue the Banks” in an effort to keep their homes, Bander announced in an email blast to media outlets that the Bander Law Firm “is now forced to close its doors.”
But while announcing his plans of shutting down the Bander Law Firm (BLF), Bander chided this newspaper, which has been responsible for exposing the sad plights of many Filipino homeowners who claimed to have paid BLF thousands of dollars and yet were not provided with the services that they thought should’ve been given by the firm.
In an email to BALITA MEDIA, Bander wrote that “On Friday, February 12, 2010, at 3 p.m., the firm will be filing a chapter 7 bankruptcy petition. About one hour thereafter, a Notice from the Bankruptcy Trustee will be posted on the Bander Law Firm web site, www.banderlaw.com, with various announcements for an orderly transition for all BLF clients.”
In the same email message, Bander said “Balita Media will undoubtedly continue to fire the flames of hysteria with little to no concern for the homeowners affected by the mortgage crisis, or the actual and complete truth of any particular homeowner’s plight.” Bander also alleged that BALITA MEDIA “considers these homeowners as mere pawns for self survival to mask and perpetuate their unlawful business schemes.”
Since December of last year, BALITA MEDIA has been receiving numerous complaints from Filipino and Korean homeowners who claimed to have hired the BLF. These homeowners claimed to have attended seminars held by the BLF that were advertised in Asian Journal and a Korean newspaper where they were told that they could sue their lenders for “predatory lending practices.”
Paying as much as $8,000 – some claimed to have paid more – each of these homeowners told BALITA MEDIA that the BLF sold them the loan litigation program of suing their banks to force them to lower their mortgage payments and thus keeping their property. They also told BALITA MEDIA that once they hired the BLF, they told them that they won’t have to worry about their mortgage.
However, these same homeowners claimed that no loan litigation cases were filed by the BLF. Worse, they received notices of foreclosure that resulted in some losing their homes. Some homeowners also claimed that they were also asked by the BLF to file for bankruptcy, which they rejected, stating that that wasn’t part of the “Sue the Banks” program. Others also revealed that instead of loan litigations, the BLF decided to pursue loan modifications on their behalf which they also claimed was not the type of legal service they had sought from the firm. Besides, they added, loan modifications cost just a fraction of the $8,000 they paid BLF, if not totally free, if they had talked to their lenders on their own.
BALITA MEDIA published a series of articles detailing how the BLF “bilked them” because the homeowners claimed that the firm “did not act on our cases.” The BALITA MEDIA articles also told of how some ended up in bankruptcy proceedings, which would normally cost $2,500 for each filing, only to be dismissed by the bankruptcy judge because they had no idea of the bankruptcy petition or the BLF was unprepared and failed to submit the necessary documents to support the petition.
But what’s more telling were the sad stories of homeowners who had to vacate their homes in the cold winter and had to look for temporary shelter after being kicked out by their lenders.
Despite the articles that BALITA MEDIA published, the BLF continued to place a weekly full page advertising campaign in Asian Journal, where Bander is the legal counsel, including a full page ad of Bander and his huge photo with the inscriptions that say “Ability. Integrity. Experience.”
“I think he has been in a state of denial,” said Ching Mendoza of BALITA MEDIA. Mendoza has been interviewing Filipino homeowners who were clients of the BLF, and who confessed to have had nightmares after visiting crying kababayans while packing their stuff inside their homes, or what used to be their homes.
“Worse, an Asian Journal reporter also attended and covered these homeowners in a news conference back in December and yet the paper continued to publish the BLF ads,” Mendoza added.
In his petition filed at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Central District of California, Bander listed a total of $3,237,746 corporate assets. The petition is 211-page long and at least five creditors are listed on each page.
Bander listed a total of $672,922 in liabilities, including secured and unsecured claims, which could run up to millions of dollars as there were “unknowns” to other potential creditors.
BALITA MEDIA has learned that the BLF is under investigation after several homeowners filed individual complaints to the State Bar that could disbar Bander if he is found to be guilty of malpractice.

In a press conference on Saturday, December 12, 2009, over 35 victims of claimed loan modification fraud gathered with members of their family at the Day’s Inn in Glendale to broadcast their anger at the Bander Law Firm for taking their money. It is alleged that over 1000 people have paid anywhere from $5000 to $25,000 for what Bander refers to as “loan litigation” yet no services were provided. It is still unknown how many total victims there are as it it anticipated that many do not even know that they have been scammed. However as information is released through the press and through web sites such as this, more people are coming forward claiming that no one at the Bander Law Firm will help them or even return their phone calls. See the numerous articles articles below that have been published in the last month on the claims against attorney Joel Bander and his law firm.

Check out this footage of victims speaking out against Bander Law Firm and being scammed. After doing nothing about their cases, many of these victims were scammed out of thousands of dollars, were forced into foreclosure and some even lost their homes.

Homeowner said Bander asked $20,000 for bankruptcy filing

LOS ANGELES – A Southern California homeowner said Sunday he nearly lost his house after paying $8,000 to the Bander Law Firm (BLF), which "didn’t do anything about my case."

"Atty. Joel Bander said I had a strong case and vowed to sue the bank if it did not modify my loan, but apparently he did not even try to communicate with the bank during the eight months that I retained his services," said the complainant, who requested that he be identified only as Luis A. of La Cañada to protect the privacy of his family.
The complainant said that when he received a Final Notice of Default from the bank in early October, he wrote the Bander Law Firm to ask what was happening with his case and to inform them that he has received a final notice. He said Atty. Bander called him up and told him his was a hard case and that’s the "chances of winning was none."
Bander then offered to save the house by filing for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, the complainant said. Bander then sent him a letter offering to file bankruptcy on his behalf if he would retain the BLF for a retainer fee of $20,000.

"He didn’t do anything to push my case after paying $8,000, and now he wanted me to pay him another $20,000 for a bankruptcy filing I didn’t want?" the complainant said.
The complainant said he would join a group of angry homeowners seeking the disbarment of Bander before the State Bar of California. There are now more than 40 clients who have joined the group, which also plans to file a class action suit against Bander.

The complainants said they paid from $6,000 to $12,000 to sue their lenders and force them to modify their loans, but they all ended up having bankruptcy filed on their behalf by the Bander Law Firm, some allegedly without their knowledge. Most of the complainants ended up losing their homes or about to lose their homes to foreclosure.

The recent complainant said, just like the other Bander clients, that he learned from the bank that the Bander Law Firm had not communicated with them at all. The lady at the bank, he said, told him they have not received a single call, fax or letter regarding his case. "We don’t know what your intention is," the bank employee said.

"I told her I wanted to keep my house and I don’t want my wife, my four children and my 90-year-old mother to become homeless. That’s the reason I signed up with Bander," he added.

He said he had lived in his house since 1995. A few years ago, he said, he took cash out from his equity to repair the home and got an Option ARM loan. He said the loan officer did not explain to him properly Option ARM, which is also known in mortgage parlance as negative amortization whereby some principal and interest payments are deferred, to be paid two or three years later along with interests, making the monthly payments almost double.

After the monthly mortgage adjusted and he had missed one payment, he went to the Bander Law Firm after reading an advertisement in the Asian Journal.
After an alleged loan analysis, he was told that he had a very strong case against the bank and that they would not accept the case if it didn’t have a good chance of winning. He signed up for $8,000 retainer fee. That was in February 2008.

He received letters from the bank about his payment defaults, but he was told by the law firm not to worry and to forward all bank communications to them. Eight months later, he received a Final Notice from the bank. After he was told by the law firm that the bank had not responded to their calls and letters, he decided to call the bank himself.

"What’s happening? Why are you not answering calls and letters from my attorney?" he asked. But the lady in the bank told him there was not a single communication from anybody, much less the Bander Law Firm.

He said Bander didn’t do anything to pursue his case, and when confronted, made a turnaround and told him that he could not do anything about his case.
"I said I thought I had a good case? He said judges are now favoring the banks. What kind of an explanation is that?" the complainant said.

He said he decided to apply for loan modification himself. The bank sent him forms to fill up, and after only 15 days, he got an approval for a three-month trial loan modification. He is now awaiting approval of permanent loan modification terms.

"After learning from the bank that the Bander Law Firm had not communicated with them, and after being told by Bander to pay $20,000 more for a bankruptcy filing, I knew then and there that this was a fraud," he added.

More and more Bander clients are coming out to join the chorus of complaints against the law firm. They all have one story: Bander lured them into paying a huge amount with a promise to sue the bank, but didn’t not do anything to pursue their case. Instead, they ended up paying thousands more for a bankruptcy filing and eventually losing their homes.
The recent complainant was luckier. He was able to save his home, but not with the help of Bander.

LOS ANGELES – Two more disgruntled Filipino clients have joined the growing list of angry homeowners who are seeking the disbarment of Los Angeles-based attorney Joel Bander for allegedly defrauding them of money they paid on a promise that Bander’s law firm would sue the banks to save their homes from foreclosure.

Fred Silao, a licensed vocational nurse whose house was sold in a trustee sale last month, said he had paid Bander a total of $5,000 but the lawyer did not do anything for his case. He said he received no updates on the case and that all he got were monthly bills from the Bander Law Firm.

"I was not even informed by the Bander Law Firm that a Trustee Sale was going to be held. I was surprised to come home on November 23 to find a Notice of Eviction pasted on my front door, giving me just three days to vacate my home," Silao said.

Bach Quiaonza, of Long Beach, said he lost his house two weeks ago after the Bander Law Firm failed to modify his loan or sue his lender. Instead, he said, he was the one sued by Wells Fargo for unlawful detainer because he failed to vacate his foreclosed home in time.

Quiaonza said there were two claimants to his house in Long beach, and the first claimant gave him one month to leave the house. Wells Fargo, however, claimed to have bought the house and gave him just three days to leave. He finally vacated the house he had bought in 2006 last Dec. 7.

Quiaonza said he retained the Bander Law Firm in December last year, and that he had paid a total of $6,000 when the eviction notice came. For several months, he did not receive any call or any letter from Bander updating him on the case. He said each time, he called, he was told the attorneys were busy and that they would call him. But no call came.

Finally on Oct. 3 and 4, a day before the Trustee Sale, a call came. Bander called to tell him his last resort was to file for bankruptcy. Quiaonza told Bander he hired his firm to modify his loan, not to file for bankruptcy on his behalf. He said he demanded that Bander return his $6,000, to which Bander replied he could only refund a portion of it. Until now, however, Quiaonza said, he has not received a single cent from Bander.

The same complaint was aired by dozens of angry homeowners, mostly Filipinos and Koreans, who attended a press conference on Saturday, Dec. 12, at the Day’s Inn Hotel in Glendale to air their grievances against the Bander Law Firm.

The homeowners said they paid the Bander Law Firm (BLF) for "loan litigation" in an effort to keep their property, but that all they got was either collection or foreclosure notices from their lenders "because the BLF neglected to act on our cases."

The homeowners have filed a complaint with the California State Bar seeking the disbarment of Bander, claiming that they were duped into paying as much as $12,000, but still ended up losing their homes or are now about to lose their property.

In their complaint with the State Bar, the homeowners claimed that the BLF did nothing for their cases and that there were no mortgage litigations that were filed on their behalf. Bander had told them that the law firm would negotiate with the banks for a loan modification and sue the banks if they did not agree to modify their loans.

They said they tried to get in touch with their attorneys at the BLF but they "did not get any updates… not a phone call, letter or e-mail." Worse, they said, it was only through their lender that they learned that the BLF had not made any communication with the banks.

Silao agreed. "In fact, I got a summons from the court on the Notice of Eviction, and when I called the law firm, they only said ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry’ but never answered the summons. I had to reply to the summons myself."

Silao said as his attorney on record, the BLF should have represented him but what he got instead was a collection notice from the law firm telling him that if he didn’t pay the balance on his account, they would discontinue their services.

It was the second time Silao had been victimized in his desire to modify his loan. Silao had put up a $50,000 down payment on the house in Norwalk that he purchased in 2007. When the monthly payments were about to adjust to more than $4,000 a month he approached a loan modification company and paid $2,500 up front, but the company didn’t do anything. He sued in small claims court and won, but couldn’t collect because the company disappeared.

He said he has decided to represent himself in an appeal he had filed against the sale of his property. "After getting burned by Attorney Bander, I don’t think I would want to hire an attorney again," he added.

But Silao said he would join a class action suit against Bander and the BLF "because victimized homeowners like myself should get the justice we deserve."

During the Saturday press conference, angry homeowners aired their complaints against Bander and the BLF. One of them, Daniel de Leon, said he lost his home in Hesperia because the BLF "did not do anything" about the case and that "he (Bander) never informed me of what’s going on."

De Leon added that although he signed up for loan litigation, the BLF ended up filing for bankruptcy on his behalf. He said he lost his property in a very humiliating way after the bankruptcy court threw out his case.

He said he came to the bankruptcy court on the instructions of BLF, "but we came unprepared, so the judge just threw our case away. And I lost my property."
De Leon said he wants to get a refund of the $12,000 he had paid BLF. "They never did anything and I am mad."

The daughter of another victim, Hannah Kim, also told the media her father suffered the same fate. She said that her father, Chil Soo Kim of Tujunga, saw the BLF’s ad in a newspaper and retained the services of the firm. However, after six months, she asked her father what happened to the case. He said he was told by the BLF to just wait.

However, after one year, they learned from their lender that the BLF never communicated with the bank. "We became suspicious and by then, we learned that other clients were also complaining. We knew then that it was a fraud," she said.

Another complainant, Virginia Aquino of Palmdale, said she has been asking for a refund. She added that she signed up for "loan litigation" but "nothing has been done." Instead, she said, the law firm recommended that she file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy.

Also present during the Saturday press conference were four lawyers representing the complainants. They were Atty. Anne Singer, a former prosecutor; Atty. Robert Mills; Attys. Ruperto Domingo and Norberto Reyes, who both worked with Atty. Bander on loan modification as associates until they discovered the firm’s fraudulent practices.
Domingo and Reyes, along with former BLF employee Oxsana Tsagaeva, wrote the State Bar to verify the charges made by the complainants.

"Incredibly, the Bander Law Firm continues to advertise the ‘Sue the Banks’ seminars, soliciting new victims to the scam, which has cost so many people their homes, families and livelihoods," the attorneys said in their formal complaint with the State Bar.

The attorneys told the State Bar that despite repeated complaints to the State Bar, "BLF continues to operate with impunity, defrauding new clients through advertisements published by the Los Angeles Asian Journal," which, they said, lists Bander as legal counsel.