Spring Hill man pleads guilty to fabricating thousands of foreclosure inspection reports "TAMPA — As the housing market imploded, Dean Counce's business boomed.
Counce's Brooksville company contracted with lenders to regularly inspect properties in foreclosure throughout the state. By 2009, Counce was sending as many as 100,000 inspection reports each month to Bank of America, receiving about $6.50 for each. Bank of America then billed the federal entities that owned or insured the mortgages............
Lenders such as Countrywide Services and, later, Bank of America would send Counce a list of distressed properties that required periodic inspections mandated — and ultimately paid for — by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or the Federal Housing Administration.
The inspections required Counce to visit a property, complete a report, take photographs and send the information to the lender. Counce performed some inspections personally, but as the company grew, he hired employees to do them.
As the housing market sank to new depths, the company couldn't keep up with the volume of inspection requests, so Counce and his staffers started fabricating reports.
When a new request came in, Counce directed inspectors to visit the property and take many photographs, far more than necessary for a single report. He then directed employees — some of them still in high school — to use the photos for subsequent reports. These workers, according to court records, were called the "dates."...............
I don't see how you could even do a drive by inspection for that. At those prices, Countrywide had to know they were buying garbage.