Erbey was the founder of Ocwen Financial Corporation, a mortgage services company that made large amounts of money during the subprime mortgage crisis.[2][9] In 2014 he stepped down as board chairman as part of a settlement with the New York Department of Financial Services, and resigned from positions at several related companies, over what the New York regulator called "serious conflicts of interest."[6][7][8] Erbey chaired, and was the largest stakeholder for, four companies which had close business relationships with Ocwen; by directing default-related business to these companies, Erbey was able to profit by putting borrowers in default.[10][6] In order to do so, Ocwen used backdated letters to borrowers to make it appear as if they had not replied in the required timeframe and violated over a thousand of its other legal obligations.[6][10][11] As part of his resignation, Erbey received a lump-sum payment of $1.2 million dollars from Ocwen.[7]
Erbey has blamed what happened to his company on what he calls a "concerted smear campaign" by PIMCO and BlackRock, which he sued in 2017. PIMCO and BlackRock have been accused of a “wilful and wanton scheme . . . to cripple, if not outright destroy” Ocwen.[12]
