More than 1, 000 consultants were combing through the loan documentation to see how much wrongdoing actually occurred, a process now stopped by this settlement.

BBC: Banks pay $8.5bn to settle home foreclosure review

Mr. RUSSUM: You started seeing forging of signatures on loan documentation.

NPR: Former Ameriquest Workers Tell of Deception

Foti's exhaustive list of demands for documents include all of UBS' electronic and paper communications files relating to Sedona stock, its trading records, monthly stock inventories, stock loan documentation, information regarding commission payments, customer account records and research done in house related to Sedona.

FORBES: Naked Justice?

In July 1999, Fannie and Angelo Mozilo's Countrywide Home Loans entered "an alliance agreement" that included "a reduced documentation loan program called the 'internet loan, '" later called the "Fast and Easy" loan.

WSJ: Review & Outlook: What Fannie and Freddie Knew

Typically, these notes (also frequently referred to as Employee Forgivable Loans or EFLs) are bastardized versions of bonuses but for the fact that the employer firm pointedly takes exception to characterizing the payments as fully earned bonuses and is typically meticulous to draft the written documentation as a loan supported by promissory notes that are forgiven on anniversaries of employment.

FORBES: Employee Loses But Sort Of Wins Twilight Zone Promissory Note Arbitration Against Citigroup And Morgan Stanley

Relative to earlier vintages, more of these loans carried greater risks beyond weak borrower credit histories including very high initial cumulative loan-to-value ratios and less documentation of borrower income.

NPR: Transcript: Bernanke on Mortgages, Foreclosures

"We have a higher documentation fee because documents are not spit out of some loan production package, " says David Loundy, vice president at Devon Bank.

FORBES: Don't Call It Interest

Payday loan companies justify the charges by noting that they are serving a riskier part of the population, with less documentation and fewer ties to the community.

FORBES: Google-Style Money for America's Poor