RTE Investigates [RTE 1]

Some fascinating digging done in this thread. Kudos to all.

It's actually amazing with a little effort, name, business name what information is out there but yes, some posters have come across some extraordinary details , Miss Marple would be envious 😁

That house was in the family for generations, over 100 years they said. You would have thought there'd be no mortgage attached to it. and yes the Son took out a big loan to buy the shop and house from the parents, leaving them with a nest egg to "ride off into the sun"

Something doesn't add up with the Louth family.

The Cork woman, your heart would go out to, you could see she was hurting inside.

To be honest I didn’t buy that story at all. I have no doubt they were swindled but I do doubt a “neighbour” just bought the property, but who knows….

Her business address was actually in Merrion Square Dublin wasn't it. It's only when they are chasing her that the company being registered in the UK becomes part of the information. A bank being in Germany might not necessarily be a huge red flag, some people might see it as a good thing that a country with a good reputation for non-corruption is part of the process. Cayman Islands, Bulgaria or Nigeria would be far more of a warning than Germany imo.

But ultimately yeah, it's all transparent enough that they could/should have seen through it, even with a simple google search as people said. Presumably these people who fell for it are only a small proportion of those who were actively targeted, usually the way the maths of these things work. You only need a small hit rate if you are getting €20K a mark.

People fall for these things because they really want them to be true unfortunately.

Really need the barrister (who recommended the marks to Carey) to be officially outed as well. She's been working for years for some of the various groups and freeman chancers grifting for money. She's a crucial cog in it all, but I guess RTE didn't enough to officially accuse her of any wrong-doing.

and lets not forget she also got a 'suspended' sentence last year for trying to defraud a hairdressers...wonder how she wiggled her way out of that??? did her barrister friend pull strings??

Well it was a suspended sentence but she would have been convicted. I wonder how many more pies she has her finger in? That hairdresser scam was going on at the same time as this. Surely AGS are actively investigation this especially if a pile of complaints have been made. AGS have the power to freeze accounts etc so you'd hope this will be done. Seems like a straight forward case for them and with the amount of evidence she will plead guilty no doubt with the hope of getting a reduced sentence.

I wonder will she have the neck to turn up for Hockey this week?

You'd wonder how his teammates etc tolerate her.

I wonder did she actually try to buy the loans from the banks?

.

So at a basic level I'm trying to understand the premice of Catrionas dastardly plan. A plan so cunning, you could put a B in front of it and call it bizzare (Blackadder , so to speak) 😁

Please feel free to correct me, I'm not an expert, just trying to understand this.

It's certain she didn't have any contact or dealings with Start Mortgages, they released a statement to that effect and I'm guessing most if the victims likely had distressed Mortgages with start and I doubt she contacted anyone other than her cohort involved in this debacle.

This aside , whilst commercial Mortgages possibly different , its not a straightforward matter of purchasing a distressed mortgage on a FAMILY home, there's a host of complications and protections involved . Banks or Vulture funds that hold distressed Home mortgage accounts generally and after possibly years of trying to resolve the issues, tend to go for Voluntary surrender, possibly through a mortgage to rent arrangement through an approved housing agency or just total surrender, if that fails, Repossession (At this stage, very hard to turn back the clock)

After which they generally wait and then put property on the market and most likely via public Auction. BidX is well known for auctioning repossed properties.

Whilst I'm not an expert it seems to me it would be quite irregular for a private company (regulated or not) to purchase someone's home and even more irregular if it was proven, that company was intending to sell it back to the distressed home owner . It just appears to be beggars belief . It's also worth pointing out, just because a home is repossessed or indeed sold, doesn't mean any residual debt goes away , so for example if the home was purchased privately by Catriona, any outstanding debt remains the liability/ responsibility of the original mortgage holder (Home owner), so if Catriona intended to then sell back the home to that person they are still possibly saddled with legacy debt which is actually registered against the property normally by way of judgement mortgage. Its highly unlikely Catriona intended to purchase these properties at full value, if she intended to purchase at all. As I type this, its becoming even more obvious how Ludicrous this scheme was .

So in essence the bizzare scheme would never have worked and this before the actual victims finding the money to actually buy back their now former homes from Catriona 😳

Commercial, Buy to let mortgages slightly different and in some cases a liquidation process is required. The most perplexing case was the post office that was sold by auction. It simply beggars belief what happened here. The Son appears to have purchased the property in 2018 (if I'm correct) within a relatively short time it was then sold from under him to a Neighbour, that is just not how it happens, we're not getting the full story here. Why in the first place did he need to purchase it 🤔 were is the money gone that was presumably given to the parents when he purchased it 🤔 , seriously, how is it remotely possible the son wasn't aware the property was being sold, its simply unbelievable he just stumbled across this by way of a call from a neighbour and then seeing it on an auction site. How were the parents still living in a property sold from under them 🤔 ( albeit I suspect this was a commercial mortgage issue). My suspicion on this case is he was trying to pull a stroke but didn't factor in the neighbours chequebook. It's not commonly known but in very rural locations, Neighbours generally don't bid on another neighbours repossed property.

So, sorry for the long post but the whole story from start to finish is just bizzare.

I'd forgotten about the WhatsApp thing, I believe one of the victims recieved a message in error from Carey but open to correction 😉 but even when I was set up and over 15 months into this scam, some of them believing Carey and left the group 😳

All lenders were subprime during the boom years I'd argue. Individual employees have gone rogue before and provided info on people.

Originally they were a Subprime lender but not in recent times. I'm actually with them after my mortgage was sold (along with 12k other mortgages) to them by PTSB . I retain all terms and conditions applicable to PTSB terms , much to Start Mortgages angst .

The vast majority of mortgage loans they own are not subprime but infact mortgages purchased from other banks. Thankfully my own remaining mortgage small 😏

Start no longer do new mortgage lending .

Yeh and how do the victims prove the cash transactions actually took place.

They'll have emails and texts acknowledging that much at least I would say. It's such a strange story I'll be fascinated to see what happens from here. Probably not much unfortunately.

She didn't say they would be paid back just to be clear. She said they had been advised not to return the monies at the moment.

Precisely 🤔

Correct and of course the money will never, ever, ever be returned, she's already emptied her bank accounts.