Why Donate?

back to main page

EMERGENCY: ML-IMPLODE IS UNDER ATTACK BY THE INDUSTRY

The current frivolous lawsuit by Loan Center of California proves that certain malicious and dishonest elements in the industry want to shut us down. They don't need a suit with merit: they just need to burn up our meager resources with legal fees and other court costs.

The implications for freedom of speech and the 1st Amendment, independent journalism, blogging, and free discussion forums are ominous and severe. We urgently need your help now. Our billable costs, more than $25,000 as of this writing (early September), are estimated to balloon past $50,000 as this case proceeds. Please use the donate meter below to support us:

goal: $50,000
.
 current: $24,311.46

Note: Meter is not updated in real-time. We will update it approximately daily.

Without your support, the Implode-o-Meter may soon be... imploded. Subsequently a chilling effect could ensue for other independent information sites. You will then know only what the industry and Wall Street and the government decide to tell you.

What is our lawsuit about? The gist is that we are being sued by a company called Loan Center of California (LCC). We posted them to our main "implosion" list on April 18th, 2007, after receiving a number of tips suggesting their company had a status that reasonable people might consider "imploded". The main tip was a detailed email from a whistle-blowing former insider. The general content of this email checked out with another tip, and with a prior newspaper article which we located. Having thus established a reasonable amount of support for the implosion status, we posted the whistleblower email (anonymously) to the main page.

LCC's council contacted us to complain within hours. We immediately flagged the entry as doubtful. This was not enough for LCC, who refused to give us a correction statement to post. Having no additional independent verification of the claims, we removed the post entirely within a day.

You would think that would be enough. However, during this time, LCC claims at least two of its warehouse funding lines were pulled. They blame us for this action, apparently holding us responsible for decisions made independently by their creditor banks. If true, the creditors ignored multiple clear disclaimers on our site. Regardless, LCC is suing us and seeking damages against us for these events.

The judge in the case has unfortunately decided to ignore the page disclaimers as well and has refused an early dismissal which would award us cost recovery. This does not mean we "lose", but it means the battle gets bigger and more expensive from here. We feel this decision tragically undermines California's Anti-SLAPP law.

Our most recent press release on the case is available here (it has a link to earlier press releases).

(Old "why donate" information follows)

Why you should donate to the Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter:

  • Because we're doing this in our not-so-copious spare time.
  • Because following up on even the most basic lead takes more time and effort than you might imagine.
  • Because we'd like to do even more thorough follow-ups.
  • Because we'd like to subscribe to (rather expensive) professional information outlets to improve the information here.
  • So we can explore providing value-added information services (for free or for a reasonable fee).
  • So we can buy some better web design.
  • To support grassroots media.
  • To stick it to the man!