Good morning to all of you. I hope you had a nice week-end; did you go swimming? How was the water?
I worked a bit this Saturday and Sunday; I won’t bore you with the details, but let’s just say I was blown away at how complex and expensive life is nowadays when compared to when I was young. Back then, we didn’t have cable TV. Or XBox 360’s. Or Blue-Rays. Or cell phone plans. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you “and life was good, sonny!”. I used to be surprised at how much money my parents saved throughout their lives; now I know how they did it. There weren’t these many so-called “necessities” back then.
Ask me about dating in the old days, bitch. I triple dare you.
And then, as I was getting ready to pay all my debts, I thought about Snowflake and something made my blood boil and my penis shrink (or perhaps it was the other way around, I’m not sure). Regardless of everything that has happened to him in life (and I mean – everything – ), just take a freaking look at him. He won. He beat the system. He accomplished what he set out to do. I can’t freaking believe it.
Just like King Pyrrhus, of Epirus (don’t feel bad, I had to Google him, too), Casey has scored some very important victories. I do not believe them to be decisive, though. If this were tennis, I’d say we would be on the fourth half of the second inning, so there’s plenty more time for things to settle down.
Allow me to demonstrate my point.
1) He always dreamed of passive income. Yet, he has discovered that when you spend $0, you don’t need 1.a) to work, and 1.b) to generate any sort of income streams. Besides, who cares about it? Money is no object (at least according to Serin, circa June, 2010. He certainly didn’t think this way 3 years ago). Victory.
2) Work and education are for losers. He isn’t working, he isn’t studying, and yet he has a roof over his head, food on the table, clothes to wear (even if they are 4 years old and worn only by M.C. Hammer wannabes). Victory.
3) His belief in Fiat currency, the mortgage scam and the strawman has been validated by the fact that he and his family haven’t paid a single cent of their mortgage agreement ever since April, 2009. Combine this fact with the Crime Family’s non-payment of their bankruptcy agreement monthly fees, and we are looking at around $30,000. Hell, yes. Victory.
No matter how you look at it, he has demonstrated every single one of us that it is possible to cheat the system and get away with it. The whole Band of Gypsies haven’t paid a single cent of their obligations, they take Tahoe vacations every 3 or 4 months, they haven’t been evicted from their home, and it looks as if they are safe.
So, if you ever thought “what would happen if I stopped paying my taxes, my mortgage, my Victoria’s Secrets underwear, and began prancing around semi-naked on the Internet?” the answer is simple. Nothing. Uncle Sam doesn’t care. You are operating within a “gray area”, and it doesn’t really matter if you have dozens of haterz™ rallying against you.
For now.
But, was it all worth it?
Hopefully, you are back from throwing up. Because, the way I see it, Casey’s victory is a prime example of a Pyrrhic one. Again, allow me to post my thoughts on the subject.
1) He’s utterly unemployable. Regardless of what he believes about work, his parents are going to retire soon, and his life story will stay on the Internet for a long time – anyone who knows how to Google will stay away from him. He won’t be able to get a job. He’ll probably end up being fed and clothed by Tim or Steve.
2) He and his family have lost access to any sort of credit. By not following the terms of their bankruptcy, and because of Casey’s adventures in Real Estate, no lender is going to touch them anymore.
3) They are slowly becoming outcasts, even among their very own. This is obvious when you see that their closest relatives are slowly turning into haterz™ themsleves.
Casey may as well be delusional at this point, too. From an article I just wrote on Wikipedia, in order to prove my point:
Delusion.
…Although non-specific concepts of madness have been around for several thousand years, the psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers was the first to define the three main criteria for a belief to be considered delusional in his 1917 book General Psychopathology. These criteria are:
- certainty (held with absolute conviction)
- incorrigibility (not changeable by compelling counterargument or proof to the contrary)
- impossibility or falsity of content (implausible, bizarre or patently untrue)
These criteria still continue in modern psychiatric diagnosis. The most recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders defines a delusion as:
- A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everybody else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person’s culture or subculture.
So, Casey & Co may have won this time. But, as Pyrrhus well said, “Another such victory, and I am undone”.
We’ll be waiting, Casey. Show us one more time how things are done.
Sacramento Empire Chronicles 
Comments on: "Casey won." (44)
You forget that throughout history, the economic system was not always a capitalistic system where people need to generate an income just to survive. Many people lived largely outside the cash economy. The work was done on a as-needed basis (for instance, agricultural work was interrupted during the cold season) and some of the rich, often surrounded by various attendants who were not necessarily working very hard, didn’t even have to work. There were disadvantages to such a system, such as the hard physical labour performed by peasants, but the fact is that most people did not have jobs per se (or had the job of being available on a as-needed basis rather than according to a schedule) and very few needed an education. Suitable work was available for the lazy, too: Casey would have done well as the guy who watches the cows graze all day and brings them back and forth, or as an attendant who must accompany a nobleman just to be there or fetch him a glass of water.
I don’t think Casey has the willpower / brains / drive to watch cows graze all day.
He wouldn’t have to. He would be able to slack off and take naps. As long as he brings them back and the wolves didn’t eat them, he would be all right.
James, he hasn’t won. No normally-functioning adult would want to be in Casey’s shoes, living his current life.
He scored “victories” over “the system”…? Great, with no real friends, maybe he can gloat about it to himself when he’s 45 years old, and still living with his parents. Still dependent on them, and still having $0.00 in his bank account.
I’m not totally ready to write off Casey ever being charged for the mortgage frauds (or the mortgage elimination sh*t if he dares to try that on the Dewey house). But his lifestyle is going to catch up to him sooner or later — his parents can’t protect him forever. And when he’s dragged into court on god-only-knows what scam he tries in the future, his past is going to crash down on him like a house of bricks.
I know he hasn’t won anything, and I was trying to be a bit sarcastic.
But I’m pretty sure he sees things differently. He’s living his dream; van down the river; retired at 28; money is no object; he attracts number 11. The police is really not interested in him – how many of you ever dreamed about stealing 8 houses and not going to jail? Well – he did it. Raise your hands if you have gone to Australia on OPM. I thought so.
And that’s the beauty of it all. He thinks he won – but I bet he doesn’t even know what a Pyrrhic Victory is. He’ll find out soon enough if he keeps this shit up.
But I’m pretty sure he sees things differently. He’s living his dream; van down the river; retired at 28; money is no object
None of those things are his dream. They’re what he tells himself to reassure himself that he’s not a total loser.
“Money is no object”, says the guy who lusts after money to the point of committing crimes to obtain large sums of cash. “I like living with my parents”, says the guy who once dreamed of running a real estate business.
how many of you ever dreamed about stealing 8 houses and not going to jail? Well – he did it.
Not really, I dreamed about buying one house legitimately and paying it off. What Casey “dreams of” are symptoms of mania/bipolar disorder.
Maybe he could find some religous organization who would train him as a missionary and send him to some foreign country. A few years down the road, he would no longer be that famous and he would have a good explanation about what he did with his time: he was a missionary and he’s a changed man who found Jesus, not a scammer, that was only in his troubled youth before he found Jesus for real.
You’re nuts if you think Casey truly follows his religion or cares about it, let alone that he has the ambition to become a missionary. This is a boi who sleeps 12 hours a day and has trouble doing basic chores around the house.
And Monica, he’s not “famous” nowadays. The media had already forgotten about him 2 years ago. All he has now are 100 or so people who are waiting to see him imprisoned.
Firstly, James, I don’t need to Google Pyrrhus to know what a Pyrrhic victory is and that it came about from winning a few battles against the Romans at huge cost to the victor. (Hey, I like being a geek – or should that be a “details guy”?)
Serously, “…..” speaks at lot of sense here. One thing that bugged me about Casey from way back was that he never knew what he was going to actually do with all his “sweet passive income”. He was always quoting figures like $5000 a month or making x millions by brokering a casino deal but never, ever came up with concrete proposals for what would follow. Why? Because he never had them. He wanted “success” and recognition and in his own mind that meant money. It was easy, sign this and you get a house and cashback. Whoopee! But now those days are over, so consciously or subconsciously he is rationalising the current situation of not having any money by a combination of it’s all fake anyway (fiat money tin foil hat theories) and the noble hobo (Freudian slip there, I first typed homo) travelling freely and living off the land. Note that in neither case has Casey the skills to succeed but it doesn’t stop him pretending or trying. There’s a little part of Casey’s brain that’s normal that is saying you are an unemployable, uneducated, broke, closet homosexual living with your parents. Unfortunately for everyone the NPD, delusional, sociopath part of his brain keeps “rationalising” his situation and telling Casey “it’s all good”.
whats ‘funny’ is that he’s done this basically out in the open for everyone to watch. most criminals would be doing this secretly away from prying eyes. if anything, this is a failure of the system
I dunno, James. Saying that Casey “won” is not much different than Casey’s way of establishing a goal, doing nothing to achieve it, and then calling it “0% success” rather than “100% failure”. The only thing he’s really “succeeded” at is staying out of prison for mortgage fraud – the only clear crime he has committed to date. But even that may change now that he’s gotten involved in this mortgage elimination scam.
As far as Casey’s new “money is no object” philosophy, it’s true that happiness is more a state of mind rather than a reflection of material prosperity. Casey is welcome to pursue a Diogenes-living-in-a-tub life style as long as he wants. But I bet he’s not really happy. There are too many cracks in his facade. Witness the potcast (#26, I think) which he spent bemoaning his fate and lack of friends.
I should have been clearer. I was being pretty sarcastic with my post. Everyone of us know Casey didn’t win – he has spun his story hard in order to make it look that way. That’s why I challenged him to “win” again – because one more such victory will be the end of him.
The only thing he’s really “succeeded” at is staying out of prison for mortgage fraud
That’s not so much a success on Casey’s part, as it is a horrendously embarrassing failure on the part of law enforcement.
Casey wasn’t some criminal mastermind doing this on the sly. He was blatantly stupid, making zero efforts to cover his tracks, and then openly confessing to the felonies through his blogs. Had he done this shit at pretty much any other time in U.S. history, he’d be serving 20 years as we speak. I have to admit though, I’m almost dumbfounded that charges have never been brought against him. As a lone individual not working in a “ring”, he’s not a small fish at all. $3 million over four states?? That is extraordinarily serious fraud right there.
But the fraud was mostly on paper. He did not get all that money. He simply borrowed more than he could possibly afford and then he didn’t pay. The banks got their houses back. If they lost any money, that’s because the value of real estate fluctuates. If anything, maybe those who bought them at very high prices and got large loans are the real victims, since others got to pay much lower prices. In that sense, Casey himself may be a victim. Or maybe he’s a victim because the economy did not allow him to succeed as a flipper.
I agree with you that staying out of prison wasn’t Casey’s success as much as law enforcement’s failure. That’s why I put “success” in quotes. Still, I would call it the only better-than-expected outcome based on what we learned of Casey in the IAFF days. The failed marriage, ruined credit and bleak job prospects were all eminently predictable three years ago. So was a long prison sentence, but that never materialized. Probably, as you say, it was because of the unique time in U.S. history. Banks were falling over each other to loan money to unqualified applicants, so a lot of criminals got lost in the crowd. I suspect Casey was one of the worst to avoid prosecution, but he certainly wasn’t the only one.
Thank you Sacramento Empire Chronicles for such an entertaining read.
Is this for real? Surely not. This Casey Serin character is the most interesting thing on the internet ever.
Where can I get more?
Caseypedia.com will provide the backstory.
http://www.campidiot.com Look on page 1 or 2 for the monster thread.
Monica, I know you’re not this dumb… but you have no understanding of U.S. law. Fraud is fraud. End of story.
Besides, you want actual money, not just “amount involved”? He wound up with around $200,000 in cash in his hands through the fraudulent scheme. As the proceeds of a felony, that is an *enormous* sum of money that would merit well over a decade in prison.
Maybe that’s the kind of sentence that is likely in your country, but nobody deserves such a long prison sentence just for some money. Why don’t you Americans have more respect for human life than for a bunch of dollars? And then you wonder why much of the world doesn’t like you and terrorists want to kill you.
Where in the world could a “normal citizen” (not an oligarch or cabal member or a dictator’s child) steal $200,000 through fraudulent contracts and not be at risk of significant jail time?
What’s the exchange rate between USD and Monicas?
I don’t know but 10 years is enormous. The money is not worth it, especially in a rich country where that money may not even buy that much. I can understand how the money may seem like a lot in a poor country where people are earning a dollar or less per hour, although the time is still extremely valuable. In fact, even there, I would say no, 10 years of a person’s life is way too much.
Many third-world countries would agree with you… instead of 10 years behind bars, they just execute the criminal and be done with it. 🙂
I occasionally read a blog about life in Panama (where I hope to retire) and recently came upon a news story about a Panamanian maid who pilfered a few coins from the rich white lady she worked for. The maid is now facing ten years in a Panamanian prison. Compared to Casey, this is petty theft…and still, ten years in a Panamanian prison. Casey deserves much more than ten years.
While that’s too much for the maid, too, the fact is that there is an essential difference. The maid stole actual money (coins). The same thing would apply if she stole goods instead, such as if she shoplifted or stole some objects from the house. This is “blue-collar” theft, that is, the outright stealing of paper money, coins or physical goods, that is severely punished. Casey just did various shady financial deals. As incompetent as he may have been in this “profession”, the fact is that he was a white-collar criminal. Those are treated less severely, often with a slap on the wrist. And while you may argue that Casey was in fact a nobody and at least the maid was working, the fact is that the maid had a low occupational status while Casey was a businessman (an incompetent one, that’s true).
What part of “cash back at close” do you not understand? He conspired to receive cash back outside of escrow –tens of thousands of dollars from each one–when he purchased his many houses–unbeknownst to the banks providing the funds. That cash went to him, and he spent it. It was real money, no matter what he (or you) might think about the true nature of fiat currency. The crime had a victim–the banks and the various people who invested in the financial securities that were predicated on the loans made to him. Those loans, as we know now, were worthless, and the banks–and those investors–lost money.
So see if you can follow the bouncing ball here. We have:
1. A crime. Fraudulent loan docs, illegal cash back.
2. A criminal. Casey Serin, who signed those fraudulent loan docs and accepted that illegal cash back.
3. A victim. The banks who lost money on the deals (as well as the investors).
How can you possibly argue that the maid in the post above stole “actual money” but Casey did not? What do you consider to be “actual money”…NOT the tens of thousands of dollars showing up in his pockets after each deal? Where do you think the money came from? I’ll tell you…it came from SOMEONE ELSE who had no intention of giving it to Casey.
Monica is a little “slow”. Just like her idol, Casey.
Monica, I have come to the conclusion that you are either one of the best long lasting trolls ever or you are “a little slow” as the previous poster said. Two points:
Casey has acquired cashback and credit to the tune of $200,000 with no intention of paying the borrowed money back. Unless he gets at least 5 years in prison for that, there’s no point in working for a living.
What should the penalty be if someone were to be fraudulently spending your retirement fund and when you came to retire the money wasn’t there. I mean, it’s all white collar stuff isn’t it? No-one gets hurt?
I understand that he got cash back at close, but it was still as the result of some business deals. I didn’t say that the deals were not fraudulent, but they were still business deals and getting money from someone who actually agreed to pay as opposed to just pocketing without permission something found in somebody else’s house like the maid did or pocketing without permission an object from a store shelf. That’s an essential difference.
“…getting money from someone who actually agreed to pay”
This is your basic misunderstanding of the situation. The bank did NOT “agree to pay” Casey the cash back at close. The bank did not know anything about it, and would NOT have authorized it. Not a single penny was supposed to go to Casey. To repeat: No one “actually agreed to pay” Casey ANYTHING! The funds he got were STOLEN!
You have to declare if you are getting cashback at close and there is an upper limit on the amount. Casey either underdeclared or never declared that there was cashback. He admitted it in an interview. He also admitted that the cashback amount was over the limit in at least one case, and that money was paid to him cash “under the table” or via a third party. What he did was blatant fraud.
It was fraud, but not stealing the way the maid would steal a few coins. You admit that money WAS PAID to him. That is, somebody paid him. There is a difference between stealing by taking money or goods behind the owner’s back and actually getting paid, albeit in a way that is technically against the rules. Maybe the bank did not know about it and would not have authorized it, but somebody out there actually paid.
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make, Monica. Of course the crimes are different – the maid committed theft and Casey committed fraud. In the U.S. both crimes are felonies punishable by lengthy prison sentences. To try to make Casey look better than the maid you appear to be trying to distinguish between bad crimes (theft) and good crimes (fraud). Naturally you are entitled to your opinion, just don’t expect a lot of people to jump on the bandwagon. I personally am very glad that Bernie Madoff is in prison and only wich Casey were there to keep him company.
Some additional thoughts: As a general rule, putting a convicted criminal in prison has several goals. One is punishment – a simple tit for tat. You lie on your mortgage application, you go to jail. Another is deterrence – anyone contemplating a similar crime will think twice if they know how serious the consequences will be. A third is rehabilitation. In theory, and occassionally also in practice, criminals getting out of prison have a chance to turn their lives around instead of going back and committing new crimes.
In my view, there is little value in putting Casey in prison as a deterrent to others. He is such a dope that very few people would seriously consider copying him. Also, it really is true that Casey only got away with his crimes because of extremely lax lending standards during the housing boom. Nowadays there is much less chance of anyone getting away with such massive mortgage fraud because the banks are much more careful in loan approvals.
But both punishment and rehabilitation are good reasons to throw Casey in prison. Acquiring millions of dollars in real estate through multiple felonies shouldn’t be so easily overlooked by the authorities. Also, as the past few years have shown, Casey is in serious need of rehabilitation. He has leaned no lessons. Quite the contrary. He is now contemplating another way of illegally acquiring real estate through this mortgage elimination scam. For his own good and the welfare of society at large, he should be locked up for a long time.
But his mortgage elimination idea doesn’t work. Also, it’s not a matter of acquiring real estate as much as a matter of trying desperately not to lose a home, one really used by the Serins as opposed to one for flipping. And I don’t see the point of punishment or rehabilitation since for the very same crimes, people get different penalties and sometimes actually escape punishment or get penalized financially but avoid jail. It’s also a matter of point of view. The convict can always rationalize it as the cost of doing business or the unfair system persecuting him. Also, while the law generally does not recognize that situation as a reason not to serve their sentences or not to be convicted, some criminals rehabilitate themselves in reality by living exemplary lives after escaping the long arm of the law.
We all know his mortgage elimination won’t work, but Casey has offered to share the profits if it does. And he was willing to try it with anyone, not his own family. Plus, just because it doesn’t work, doesn’t stop it being a criminal act.
The plus of Casey being jailed, if it ever happens, will be that he will get a mental health evaluation. Something his parents are in denial of being an issue.
Who on earth is Monica?
A Romanian from Montreal, 39 and fat and one of the few people who actually likes Casey and wishes him the best. I’ve been following the Casey saga since the IAFF days (not from the very beginning, though). I used to actually believe that Casey is a great businessman but have learned otherwise since.
You are quite wrong, Monica, if you think that I don’t wish Casey well. I suspect most of the haterz would quickly turn into supporterz if Casey would only stop acting like such a low life criminal. But he hasn’t. In the three years since shutting down IAFF he has lurched from one loony scam to another. Everyone else can see how detached from reality he has become, always hoping that his next crazy idea will be the one to make his fortune.
That’s why I think Casey needs to be in prison. What he’s doing now isn’t working, but there is nothing pushing him to change. Prison would finally show him that he’s not above the law and give him a chance to become rehabilitated. He may not take advantage of the opportunity while in prison, but that’s his choice. Continuing on as he is right now is clearly hopeless.
Well, OK, some Haterz would like Casey to do well. Only, they would like him to change, such as to stop looking for easy money and get a job instead. I would actually have liked Casey to succeed as a businessman or scammer. In fact, I wasted thousands of dollars on MLM and other business schemes that didn’t work out and on advertising for them. At this time, I cut expenses, paid off some debt and I still have 2 credit cards to pay off (I’m paying this myself, I didn’t get my salary garnished). One of them should be paid off in August or, in the worst case, in September. Or, someone who lost many times more money and who is not paying and doesn’t care is an example of my wildest dream come true (not as a man, although I do find Casey sexy, but as a businessman/scammer/ordinary individual winning against corporations). I would love to see Casey sc*** all creditors, make lots of money and at least save his parents’ home, since he could not save his multiple houses.
According to the Financial Times, the FBI is set to arrest hundreds of mortgage fraudsters next week. I’m hoping that the FBI will include the C-Ster in their arrests, but at this point I can see him skating again.
Although he pretended to be a businessman, the fact is that he was just an individual borrower who can plead ignorance. It’s the brokers who may get in trouble. One thing I regret is that the various scams and the overextended borrowers ruined the opportunity of getting loans with little or no income verification for those who would have used it responsibly.
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