If I was working a cash register and over-charged a customer two grand I might be fired on the spot. On the odd chance that someone working a cash register wasn't fired, you can imagine that they would never be allowed to keep their job if they made the same on average $2,000 mistake over and over again for several years, but if a escrow servicer makes this "mistake" thousands and thousands of times over it is not a mistake, it's a business plan. That business plan of making mistakes is like something out of Office Space, where you steal a tenth of a penny from every account and it adds up to millions, only escrow servicers are stealing an average of $2,000 per mistake and making billions upon billions over the years that they have been getting away with this.

It's a scam. Another racket among the many confusing tentacles of the vampire squid that is strangling consumers one household at a time.

Over at NakedCapitalism.com, Yves Smith sums up this kind of scam perfectly . . .

And that is what the banks rely on, that their malfeasance is a bit hairy to find and prove out, and that it is way too costly for the parties damaged (borrowers and investors) to prove the abuse exists and beat it back. In many ways, this is close to a perfect crime.

It is a CRIME. Massive consumer fraud.

Every time Mayor Bloomberg or Mitt Romney or some Wall Street political hack says "Don't blame Wall Street!" we have to remind everyone that many of these consumer frauds are not a "mistake", they are a business plan, and the record profits Wall Street pulls down right now are only possible because of the ongoing criminal consumer frauds that these financial institutions are engaged in. This is why we need a fully staffed and fully funded Consumer Financial Protection Agency. This is just one of many reasons why I Occupy Wall Street. I can't afford a $2,000 "mistake", and neither can 99% of American consumers. Too bad most Conservatives don't give a damn about protecting American consumers, they are too busy trying to regulate gay marriage.

You can follow me on Twitter @JesseLaGreca