Foreclosure Victims Face New Trouble – Rescue Fraud Teams
Posted on September 8, 2009
Filed Under Foreclosure Homes | Leave a Comment
Things are already bad for foreclosure victims but now they are facing new trouble in the form of rescue fraud. The real estate market has slumped but nefarious fraudsters are thriving.
Officials at all levels are gearing up to face a new rush of foreclosure rescue fraud cases. The lawmakers of Florida will be backing a bill that will allow use of more direct use of federal money to fight the fraud cases that have become an epidemic.
Ann Fulmer is the vice president of firm that deals with fraud detection in Atlanta – Interthinx. She said, “Fraud always shifts to take advantage of the market. People are so desperate now, we’re actually seeing fraud going up.”
There are fraudsters of all shapes and sizes – corrupt agents and condo flippers. Florida ranks first as regards mortgage frauds since the last two years according to FBI. Till the breaking of the foreclosure crisis in full force, mortgage fraud involved largely real estate flipping. Shady investors would take over properties at low price and then swiftly resell them for quick profits. To do so false identities were used because they had no intention of repaying the lenders. With the breaking of the housing bubble the prospects of buying low and selling high vanished. So these investors just shrugged off the mortgaged house as bad luck and walked away.
In April 2008 report, the FBI warned that the slow housing market is ideal for trapping more foreclosure victims into a rescue scam.
Sixty four year old Barbara Simmons is an example of one such victim. She fell behind in her mortgage payment and was duped by the smart talk of a mortgage broker. She transferred the deeds of two of her houses being assured that he would stop foreclosures. Far from doing so the cheat used the deeds to personally borrow $500,000 by using the houses as security. Then he defaulted on the monthly mortgage dues. The result was that Simmons has been evicted from one of her houses in West Evanston Circle and fears the same fate as regards her second unit. She used to earn a living from one of the houses. The broker is not licensed but he has not been charged for crime as yet. Simmons bemoans, “These people go to court and find out about pending foreclosures. They see what equity you have and they target you. I lost my income. I lost my business. I lost my home.”
Popularity: 9% [?]
Related Tags
- repo scams
- forclosure victims and crime
- scams on foreclosure victims
- site:governmentrepohomes com foreclosure victims
Comments
Leave a Reply