Tag: strategic defaulters

The case is now famous. The homeowner had applied for the Home Affordable Mortgage Program, or HAMP, an Obama administration initiative to give distressed and tapped-out borrowers lower monthly payments. But this “HAMPlicant,” the writer on the blog Calculated Risk noted, had given up on a $1,880 a month mortgage and spent hundreds of dollars instead at a spa, tanning salon, gourmet grocery store and liquor store, capping it all off with $1,700 in charges to mall stores from Baby Gap to Best Buy. She's what bloggers are calling a "foreclosure queen."