"Bishop's story is a rare inside look at forces that tore the economy apart, as seen by a plain-spoken loan salesman who is now suing World Savings, claiming that he was fired for telling executives what they didn't want to hear.
"I definitely talked to him about Enron. I said, 'We're sitting on an Enron.' This is…bigger than Enron. I mean, we’re doing four billion a month in loans. If housing drops, housing value drops, people start to default, you know? This is a nightmare. These people will not survive it," Bishop told Pelley.
Bishop was a mortgage salesman at World Savings San Francisco Loan Origination Center. He'd been a top salesman at IBM and spent years as a stock broker. Most everywhere he went, he had a reputation for speaking his mind and ruffling feathers. He joined World in 2002, in part, because of its history.
Maeve-Elyse Brown, a lawyer for a non-profit group working to save homeowners from foreclosure, says
Betty Townes' actual income was about $1,875, but that the income written on her loan application was over $4,000.
Asked who did that, Brown told Pelley, "The interviewer that's listed is a staff person for World, for World Savings, according to the loan documents."
"What does that tell you?" Pelley asked.
"Looks like whoever typed up this document put in the number that they thought was the right number to get the loan approved," Brown said.
"The term was 'packaged.' It had to be packaged correctly when it got to the underwriter," Bishop told Pelley.
Bishop says a story like Betty's was common at his former office.
He says facts were manipulated on some loan documents to get past company underwriters who approved the loans. "You know, let's not say this. Let's delete these items that they're probably not gonna check on. Let's add this. Let's just move it around."
"Packaging the loan meant modifying [the loan]…to make sure it would pass the underwriters' inspection?" Pelley asked.
"Correct. It was one grand wink-wink, nod-nod," Bishop said."
