Fairbanks Serves as Warning.(Fairbanks Capital Corp.)

Fairbanks Capital, under fire from politicians, regulators and consumer advocates, may hold some lessons for the entire mortgage lending industry.

And with servicers facing increasing scrutiny in the wake of the Fairbanks case, they are rethinking some aggressive collection practices that may have placed a premium on reducing foreclosure timeframes at the expense of customer service.

Kathleen Tillwitz, a Fitch analyst who has examined Fairbanks, said the Fairbanks issue appears to be limited to that lender now, but could turn into an industry problem.

"We've learned that customers are more legal savvy these days. They are more quick to call an attorney," she said.

As a result, everyone is re-evaluating their policies and procedures to make sure that "if a customer calls in and gets angry, it gets resolved," she said. Lenders don't want frustrated customers bringing their complaints to law offices or regulators.

Fairbanks' difficulty in servicing its customers may reflect, at least in part, a change in the company's growth strategy from acquiring smaller portfolios of loans to taking in a significant amount of new loan business on a "flow" basis without making changes to its procedures.

But the company's difficulties offer some lessons to the entire servicing industry.