FORECLOSURE ON BANK OF AMERICA

In 2009 Warren and Maureen Nyerges purchased a home in beautiful Naples, FL. They purchased the home outright with no need for a mortgage. A series of clerical errors within the bank found the Nyerges in the midst of their home being foreclosed on in 2010. Having never taken out a mortgage on their home, they couldn't understand why their property was being foreclosed on. After working with Naples lawyer Todd Allen, the Nyerges reached a settlement with Bank of America. However, the bank never made good on the settlement and after months of dead ends and frustration, Allen took steps that eventually made international news: He foreclosed on Bank of America.

Allen engaged the services of the Collier County Sheriff's department and our company and the plan was set in motion. We sent a crew to meet with Allen and the sheriff's department. Word quickly spread to the news media and we were soon in the midst of a small-scale media frenzy in the bank's parking lot. Escorted by sheriff's deputies, Allen entered the bank and spoke with the manager. The manager was notified that unless a check was presented on the spot that our team would begin the process of removing furniture, computers and cash, pursuant with the foreclosure judgement against the bank that Allen had previously obtained.

Fortunately, justice finally prevailed and Allen received a check from the manager. Our crew returned to our headquarters and we all went back to our daily lives. By that afternoon though, local news outlets had released the story and word spread across the country that a Bank of America branch had just been foreclosed on by a private homeowner. Within a matter of days, our offices were inundated with calls and emails from people across the country and around the world, supporting our involvement with what had happened. (My personal favorite was a post card that we received from Vietnam letting us know that he'd thrown a party in our honor. While we were only one of the cogs in the machine that turned that day and the sender's information wasn't entirely accurate, we still appreciated his thoughts!) In addition to countless calls from local and regional news stations, I also received a call from a producer at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He let me know that their correspondent John Oliver wanted to do a segment on the story and that they wanted us to be involved. As an avid watcher of The Daily Show and a fan of John Oliver, I quickly agreed that we'd take part.

A few weeks later we sent out two of the three original staff members who'd worked the project to meet with Oliver at the bank branch. After a long day of filming, the shoot was wrapped. We anxiously waited to get the notification from Comedy Central that the segment would be airing and not long after, the call came. You can view The Forecloser segment here. While our screen time in the segment was somewhat limited, it made quick local celebrities of our staff members, who still get kudos around Naples for taking down a bank! Fast forward to May of 2016. Mitch Elfreth, our Senior Crew Leader who lead the project, shared that he'd been tagged in a Facebook post that the story was back in circulation again. Apparently anyone who wasn't familiar with the story when it broke in 2011 was seeing it plastered all over Facebook, Twitter and other media outlets. The video posted to Facebook has racked up over 15 million views thus far, reigniting the frenzy that originally started five years ago.