Nigel Swaby Seeks Internet Asylum

Since Casey Serin has kicked his former little buddy Nigel Swaby to the curb, the "Man of a Million Blogs" mortgage lender has been seeking internet asylum. Sticking to his old trick of trying to garner as much redirected traffic as possible, Nigel Swaby seems once again pulled into the aura of the ExUrbanNation crowd...the very same folks he has repeatedly gone out of his way to repudiate.

I haven't spent a lot of time at EN lately. The sheer volume of posts and comments have been difficult to keep up with. So imagine my surprise when I read through several posts and find Nigel and some Haterz yukking it up.

To clarify, in just March of this year, Nigel Swaby, a licensed mortgage broker who has access to financial and credit software, decided to post the identities of three frequent posters at EN. I don't know if he abused his professional position in order to triangulate his information. But it is incredibly unsettling that someone in this position would do that, particularly considering the "grand offense" that catalyzed his actions. Per Nigel:

"...Finally, one hater impersonated me on IAFF. Unfortunately for him, I knew who he was. So I made a comment at IAFF to clear my name. I “outed” said hater and EN erupted. They emailed my boss and some other people unrelated to my company. They “reported” me to the State board - Your action was childish and vindictive. I have reported you to your state board.

The “outed” hater called me the next day. Do you know what he did? He apologized. We had a good talk about the whole thing and he apologized. He asked me to remove reference to him at IAFF and do you know what? I did.

As far as my boss [at Integrity First Financial] goes, he had this comment - I looked at your post 109 and fell off my chair. Great humor, way to put the dweeb in his place. This whole blog thing is a frickin hoot! Happy traffic!"

So whomever Nigel spoke with apologized for utilizing the user name Nigel Swaby in the comments section of the website "I Am Facing Foreclosure." In return, Nigel Swaby posted pictures and brief bios on these people, who, to my knowledge, don't even maintain blogs...they were just regulars to comment at ExUrbanNation.

Considering this history, I was confused as I read through EN and noticed Nigel Swaby and some of the "Haterz" being pleasant to one another. I decided to poll the audience for answers:

"I'm unclear as to where all the Nigel love has come from of late. Do people have such short memories that everyone has forgotten the outings, the "full of hate" comments, the sneering "I don't like you" bullshit?

I'm just not on board. Because, Nigel, it seems you've been playing both sides against the middle since the beginning. This latest outpouring of hand-holding around the campfire seems to coincide with KC officially kicking you out of his inner circle. So is this just any port in a storm?

I don't see any grand revelations coming from you...merely confirmations of things already proven as fact. Why take so long to divulge what are some inconsequential factoids? Why still pandering (like way back on the SDCIA boards) with the "I'll post that later...patience" routine?"

The first person to respond said, "Congratulations are in order to everyone that caught on early, you clearly are more 'people smart.' Some of us are not. The shame of that is punishment enough, no?"

I can't answer that, because it's a logical fallacy. This isn't about kicking someone when he's down. Because Nigel Swaby wasn't just Casey Serin's biggest cheerleader. He was a vindictive, awful man-child who went out of his way to publish information about prominent Casey Serin critics in the hope of intimidating them into silence.

That's not an "oops!" offense.

In response to my query at EN, Nigel Swaby responds:

"Aspeth,

I think the change in attitude came from the 2nd haterzcast I called in on. Yes, I supported Casey publicly and privately for far too long. I probably would have continued to do so had he not abandoned his wife. I have a real problem with that.

The change in tone has come in part because people now see me as a real human being and no longer as some sort of character or caricature. I'm an honest person and have been sharing what I can to paint a clearer picture of what's been going on. I've protected Casey in the past when I probably shouldn't have.

Like Mark, Duane and even yourself I now think Casey needs to be stopped. I didn't consider him dangerous before, but now he's hurting real people. He's shirked all consequences to date and now I am doing my part as probably his strongest online supporter to show the world what he truly is: a deluded, selfish child that needs to grow up and face his mistakes."

So, wait...Nigel made a phone call, pulled a few jabs at himself and now it's all Kumbaya and s'mores?

"I Like M. Singh" pointed out that Nigel Swaby has offered no apologies for his previous behaviour, saying

"Please accept this note in support of your comments regarding MR SWABY. We have seen three of his 'outed' publicly "forgive", though not in so many words, MR SWABY's nefarious actions. My response to this is, for one, there remains the nice gentleman with the Scion and the Comics, and two, it was still a wrong act in principle and no public apology has been proffered- only a veiled suggestions that perhaps MR SWABY has grown from this experience, and so on.

I am one of those that MR SWABY compared to rats being shone light upon."

I was interested to hear Nigel Swaby's response to these, and other criticisms that have been levied against him. I asked the following, but not surprisingly, Nigel Swaby decided to lurk rather than respond.

"As I've stated before in my award-winning blog, I've always found it incredibly dodgy that a mortgage lender would befriend and defend a mortgage fraudster. And that was just confirmed with your comment, Nigel, that only now is KC "hurting real people."

Was he somehow not hurting real people by appropriating $2.2 million from various banks? Was he not hurting real people by letting those properties fall into disrepair and fall into foreclosure?

Lawnmower man, I appreciate your point but no, I didn't see any revelations. There had already been much talk of KC shopping for a million-plus w/cashback, even before the Utah trip. To say that speculation over Nigel's boss being "g" is what prompted that is utter bullocks. That speculation has been going on for months...again, it only comes out after KC kicks Nigel out of the clubhouse.

Thanks for the clarification, ILMS. I was wondering if an apology had been proffered for the outings. I mean, Jesus, Nigel...you outed a FED! The idea that someone with gov't-issued professional licensure would do such a thing is beyond the pale!"

Nigel Swaby has tried to make nice with with Casey Serin's critics several times before, most notably when Casey gave him the boot by tossing out their business agreement. In short order, Nigel returned to his petulant thin-skinned ways.

We are often, in life, required to suspend disbelief in order to grasp a clearer picture of any particular situation. For me, I suspend disbelief in the early stages of the relationship. And when behaviors repeat themselves, it becomes easier to determine who the person is behind the social mask.

If someone I knew of but didn't know personally were to walk up and slap the person standing next to me, I would not only form an opinion, I wouldn't avail myself to be party to such a circus again.

In much the same manner, Nigel Swaby could be a multi-faceted person that becomes more agreeable as you get to know him. But based on the past behaviour that Nigel has exhibited, I've experienced all I can stomach, and I'd rather stick with my well-formed opinion than volunteer to be batted about.

The Things You Find in Your Blog's Logs...

Most of the time, a blogger's logs are a great tool for gauging the traffic for any given topic about which we may write. To this day, I bemoan the fact that the satiric piece I wrote about Anna Nicole Smith's death got far more pageviews than, say, the piece on the Most Popular Event in the World.

In rare instances, logs reveal more than we might expect. For a couple of weeks, I had noticed some strange Google queries that led someone to my page. I only gave it a cursory look, and didn't think much more of it.

Then Nigel Swaby posted the identities of frequent ExUrbanNation posters on his creepy "don't hate casey" blog. I spent most of the day thinking about how disturbing it was that someone with access to personal financial data had done that.

Later in the evening, I recalled those curious Google searches. I pulled up the logs and took a closer look. And sure enough, queries such as "Where does Aspeth live?" originated from Utah terrorities such as Salt Lake City.

While Nigel Swaby says that he only picked the 'low-lying fruit' through simple searches, there were numerous such queries within a three week period. Nigel Swaby spent a lot of time trying to track down the Haterz.

Some days, there were a dozen or more queries, trying to determine my age, address, phone number...any identifying information that would be useful. And these were just the searches I could see.

I emailed Rob Dawg and we had a brief exchange about Nigel Swaby's latest escapade with Casey Serin's critics. I'm sure that blogs like Housing Panic had similar searches.

Since the Google queries showed that *someone* in Utah (since it can't be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was Nigel Swaby) was also searching for the profiles of folks who had posted here, I made sure that my logs couldn't be accessed without passwords.

Obviously, the queries on those leaving comments here didn't turn up much. By and large, they weren't people who had a deep involvement in Casey Serin's story, or were people with fairly anonymous user names. Still, the creep factor remained.


Conversely, a blog's logs can also make you laugh. Nearly everyday, someone from a mental health facility in Utah Googles Nigel Swaby. This alone raises a world of possibilities.

It's been said before, but I'll reiterate it. Nigel Swaby will give his "expert" real estate and mortgage opinions at the drop of a hat. Personally, if I were a consumer shopping for a mortgage broker, I'd look for one who doesn't spend so much time playing on the internet.

A poster at ExUrb asked how Integrity First Financial's clients would feel about doing business with someone so willing to proffer personal information when he feels wounded. According to Nigel Swaby, when he told his boss about what he had done, his boss laughed and told him "happy traffic."

I guess that answers the question.