The increasing number of ‘Stop Foreclosure Scams’ that are literally stealing the homes right out from underneath thousands of unwary homeowners are alarming officials all across the country. Foreclosure rates are soaring and scam artists who promise phony ‘foreclosure rescue’ services are having a field day stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from those who can least afford to lose it.
According to RealtyTrac one percent of all US households were in ’some stage of foreclosure’ in 2007. A staggering 2.2 million Americans filed for foreclosure the same year. The shaky economic situation has resulted in a lot of cash-poor but house-rich owners who are desperate to hang on to the last real asset they have left. Many of them are frightened and overwhelmed making them easy targets for an emerging breed of scam artists out to con them out of their homes under the guise of helping them.
Being both extremely lucrative and having a very low-risk factor the foreclosure rescue scam business has ballooned frighteningly in recent times. Foreclosure figures are expected to increase sharply giving scam artists a steadily increasing pool of potential victims.
Foreclosure rescue scams and mortgage fraud were identified as one of the top five ‘fastest-growing crimes’ and ‘worst complaints’ to plague the country, according to a report released on July 30, 2008 by the Consumer Federation of America. (http://www.consumerfed.org/pdfs/07_complaint_report.pdf) The ‘worst complaints’ category is based on the number of people affected.
The FBI is also struggling to cope with the rise in mortgage fraud. They received 46,717 Suspicious Activity Reports related to mortgage fraud in 2007 and while only seven percent of these reports specified the amount of money lost, the total dollar loss from just this seven percent was $813 million. Their caseload on mortgage fraud has tripled in recent times and the agency expects foreclosure rescue scams to increase in number for at least the next two years.
The FBI’s chief of financial crimes, Sharon Ormsby, believes that the problem of foreclosure rescue scams will only worsen. She commented on the issue in a recent news report on USAToday and said, “The scope is probably going to be potentially as large as the mortgage fraud problem itself.”
(http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-08-04-foreclosure-scams_N.htm)
The problem has become so critical that 14 states have passed new legislation this year in an effort to protect homeowners from falling prey to ’stop foreclosure’ scammers. Homeowners in financial distress, though, fall victim all too easily. Scam artists use a variety of techniques to find their victims–sending them mail, leaving flyers on their doorstep, bombarding them with phone calls every day and even sending pleasant looking company representatives to their door.
It’s simple to lure distressed homeowners willing to do anything to save their home with advertisements like
‘Stop Foreclosure Today’
‘We Can Save Your Home–Free Consultation’
‘Our Experts Will Stop Your Foreclosure This Week’
‘You’ll Lose Your Home If You Don’t Call Us’.
It’s difficult for any homeowner to verify the authenticity of the person or company since these many of these advertisements typically carry only a phone number. Most of these outfits are fly-by-night operations that milk the homeowner out of cash, their home’s equity, their home or all three. Considering the huge amounts of money involved in home equity, it only takes about ten such scams for a con artist to become a millionaire.
If you are a homeowner facing the threat of a potential foreclosure and want to find a way to genuinely save your home without being ripped off, learn all you can about foreclosure rescue scams. The only way to avoid being conned is to know what to look out for. You can avoid the humiliation of being scammed and losing your money by taking a few precautionary steps.
Read more on Foreclosure Fraud – Stop Foreclosure Scams On The Rise…
Filed under Scam Alert by on Oct 22nd, 2009. 
If you are a homeowner facing foreclosure then you are probably desperate for any lifeline that involves you keeping your home. It’s not easy to handle such a complicated process all by yourself and you may be searching for expert help to get you through these tough times. There’s a lot of understandable confusion surrounding the foreclosure process especially since many states still practice non-judicial foreclosure. This means that the state is not supervising the foreclosure process. So whom do you turn to, to get more details? How do you find out how much time you have before you legally lose ownership of your home?
A legitimate counseling agency or a reputed lawyer can help you with the right answers to these questions. Most homeowners don’t know how to find a counseling service or may not be able to afford expensive legal counsel. You may find yourself being contacted by someone who does seem to have all the answers to your questions and who is willing to handle the foreclosure process on your behalf. He may call himself a ‘foreclosure rescuer’ or a ‘foreclosure counselor’ and offer you any number of options to save your home, from getting a second loan to offering to buy your house from you.
The rescuer, in all likelihood, is probably a scammer who is getting ready to steal your home or a substantial amount of money from you. Foreclosure rescue fraud rates are escalating all over the country. You can find a news item almost everyday about someone who was evicted from their home or a fraudster who walked away with hundreds of thousands of dollars in home equity funds.
Signs featuring statements like — ‘We buy houses’, ‘Instant cash for your home’, ‘Fast cash loans’, ‘Refinance your mortgage’ seem to be everywhere these days. They can be found nailed to trees, hanging on fences, mounted on telephone poles, even on billboards. And these notices often do nothing but advertise the scammer’s phone number to a gullible, desperate public. It’s difficult for authorities to take action on these scammers, since they are careful to not do anything directly illegal but operate in underhand and unethical ways to achieve their ends.
For instance, many ‘We buy houses’ scams focus on getting the homeowner to agree to a second loan. The scammer tricks them into signing over the deed of their house under the guise of filling out a loan application. Another strategy is to offer the homeowner the option of living in their home as a renter, while the scammer buys their house at a cheap rate with the promise of selling it back to them at the end of their lease period. The con artist has no intention of selling your home back to you. Instead they will make it impossible for you to meet the terms of the contract by either raising the rent, stealing your mortgage payments, taking out a second loan on your house without your knowledge, or any combination of all these.
The only way to truly avoid foreclosure fraud is to be aware of their tactics and exercise a little caution every step of the way. Don’t sign anything you don’t understand or that isn’t clear or has a lot of blank spaces. And get everything (EVERYTHING) checked out by your lawyer. If you decide to sell your home, contact an established real estate firm to handle the deal on your behalf or sell it yourself. This way you’ll at least get the equity left in the property after you’ve settled your mortgage payments and any arrears.
Read more on We Buy Houses Scams – How To Avoid Foreclosure Scams and Fraud…
Filed under Scam Alert by on Oct 16th, 2009.
If someone who calls himself a ‘mortgage rescuer’ or a ‘foreclosure rescue specialist’ has approached you, beware! People who approach you unsolicited with offers to save you from foreclosure should be viewed with extreme suspicion. The person might offer to help you out of the tight spot you are in by applying for a second mortgage or renegotiating terms with your lender. They might pressure you to sign a number of documents and not give you the time to review them properly. You’re in great danger of losing your home to a scam artist.
In this classic foreclosure scam called the ‘Bait and Switch’, homeowners are tricked into signing over ownership of their house, without their awareness. Is that really possible? Unfortunately, it’s just all too easy to pull this type of scam. These con artists present homeowners with convoluted legal papers that contain clauses transferring ownership of their home to a company or even a trust. It’s difficult even for law-savvy attorneys to understand trust agreements let alone homeowners who have little legal knowledge. Failing to get your signature might not be a setback for an experienced scammer. They’ll simply forge your signature on the deed transfer documents.
Once you’ve signed away your home, an eviction notice might be the first sign that you get of being scammed. Homeowners can spend years contesting the fraud in court, embroiled in expensive trials, while fighting to get their home back. There’s no guarantee that you’ll win your home back once you’ve signed it away. The best strategy here is to avoid falling victim to this scam. You can do that by-
1) Never signing any document that has incomplete information or blank spaces. Shysters can fill up these spaces with any information later on.
2) Never signing anything in a rush. Take time to review everything fully
3) Get everything checked out by your lawyer–Not a lawyer provided by the foreclosure specialist.
4) Getting all the agreements down in writing. Verbal agreements don’t hold up in court.
Prevention is truly the best medicine in this case. You can prevent yourself from being defrauded with a little foresight, caution and good sense. Don’t bite if a deal seems to offer a miracle. That’s the first sign of it being a scam.
Don’t also fall for any pitch that includes repairing your credit history or eliminating your debt entirely. It’s just not possible to wave a magic wand and have these things disappear from your credit history. Some scammers even throw in a free vacation or a sum of cash to sweeten the deal. Don’t give in to your desperation and sign a stack of papers, hoping for things to turn out well. Trust your instincts.
If you reached the unavoidable position of having to sell your home, remember that it’s not the end of the world. You can use the cash you receive from the sale of your home and any equity you have left in the property. This will help you to make a fresh start. Use the services or a reputed real estate firm or sell your home yourself. Being a renter once again is way better than being scammed out of your home.
Filed under Scam Alert by on Oct 10th, 2009.
