Christopher Marconi was in the shower when he heard a loud banging on his door. By the time he grabbed a towel and hustled to his front step, a U.S. marshal’s sedan was peeling out of his driveway. Nailed to Marconi’s front door was a foreclosure summons from Wells Fargo, naming him as a defendant. But the notice was for a house Marconi had never seen — on a mortgage he never had.

A long, important Associated Press story this morning about the wrongful foreclosures caused by the banks’ high-speed foreclosure procedures and inadequate record keeping practices. As the story reminds us, these procedures have included fraud as a routine practice:

Depositions from employees working for the banks or their law firms depict a foreclosure process in which it was standard practice for employees with virtually no training to masquerade as vice presidents, sometimes signing documents on behalf of as many as 15 different banks. Together, the banks and their law firms created a quick-and-dirty foreclosure machine that was designed to rush through foreclosures as fast as possible.

Former employees at banks and foreclosure law firms have testified that they also knowingly pushed through foreclosures on the wrong people.

If you receive a notice of foreclosure, contact an attorney immediately so you can take advantage of all your options!