Burger King Kids

An executive at JPMorgan Chase & Company dubbed some of his young new hires “Burger King kids” (after the fast food restaurant), according to the New York (NY) Times of October 13, 2010. Many of the “Burger King kids” became “robo-signers” of mortgages, where the kids’ inexperience and naïveté was seemingly useful in their jobs.
   
Although the term “robo-signer” has become established throughout the mortgage industry, the nickname “Burger King kids” has mainly remained as slang within JPMorgan Chase & Company.
 
   
Wikipedia: Burger King
Burger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain.
 
New York (NY) Times
Bankers Ignored Signs of Trouble on Foreclosures
By ERIC DASH and NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
Published: October 13, 2010
At JPMorgan Chase & Company, they were derided as “Burger King kids” — walk-in hires who were so inexperienced they barely knew what a mortgage was.
(...)
And even when banks did begin hiring to deal with the avalanche of defaults, they often turned to workers with minimal qualifications or work experience, employees a former JPMorgan executive characterized as the “Burger King kids.”
 
Business Insider
Banks Caught Hiring Hair Stylists, Factory Workers, And Burger King Kids To Sign Foreclosure Documents
Courtney Comstock|October 14, 2010
Turns out the reason for foreclosure gate isn’t that the people who caused foreclosure-gate didn’t have enough time to read all of the documents - it’s that they had no idea what they were reading.
 
Banks hired foreclosure and loan officers that were former employees of Burger King, factories, and hair salons when they were hit with a wave of foreclosures in 2007.
 
A piece in the New York Times today reveals that many of bank employees reading and signing foreclosure documents barely knew what a mortgage was.
 
Suq Al Mal
Thursday, October 14, 2010
The “Developed” West - Burger King Kids Banking
“First-Class Business in a First-Class Way”
 
It’s got to be gratifying to work for a first-class firm that labels you a “Burger King kid”.
   
ABC News 
Foreclosure by Rubber Stamp? State Attorney Generals Investigate 
By LYNEKA LITTLE
Oct. 18, 2010
In one month, thousands of documents were pushed through the system by one man.
(...) 
Because of the sheer volume of foreclosures, some companies employed “robo signers,” individuals whose job was to sign off on the bulk of paperwork. Such people were dubbed “The Burger King Kids” at J.P. Morgan and Chase, according to The New York Times.
   
EconoMonitor
New York’s U.S. Bankruptcy Court Rules MERS’s Business Model Is Illegal
Author: L. Randall Wray ·  February 17th, 2011
(...)
A mortgage has two parts, the “note” and the “security” (not to be confused with the MBS) or “deed of trust” that is usually just called the “mortgage”. The idea behind MERS was that the “note” would be transferred from seller to purchaser, but the “mortgage” would be held by MERS. In fact, MERS recommended that the “note” be held by the mortgage servicer to facilitate foreclosures, but in practice it seems that the notes were often lost or destroyed (which is why all those Burger King Kids were hired to Robo-sign “lost note affidavits”).