Tricolor’s Excel Guy Failed to Fix Numbers in Alleged Fraud (1)

It was, according to Daniel Chu, “the stupidest f—-ing thing [he had] ever heard.”

That’s how the Tricolor Holdings founder, in a secretly recorded August phone call, described the blunder that ultimately exposed what authorities allege was a more than $1 billion fraud.

Ameryn Seibold, one of Chu’s top lieutenants, was tasked with manipulating the Excel data that the subprime auto lender regularly sent to its financiers, making thousands of delinquent car loans appear current. But in another column listing the loans’ outstanding balances, Seibold failed to reduce the numbers, leaving a glaring mismatch, according to federal charges unsealed ...