FBI says mortgage fraud top priority for white collar crime squad

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FBI officials said they most often see scam artists taking advantage of individuals whose homes are foreclosed upon.

Aldrich said these fake companies encourage home owners on the brink of foreclosure to sign their deeds over to them.

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Five California Cities Redlining

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in great depression

The California Reinvestment Coalition’s new research in five California cities shows re-redlining happening through a pattern of concentrated predatory lending and foreclosures, combined with higher denials for new, prime loans in neighborhoods of color. Based on original research using seldom analyzed lending and loan modification data, the report looks at how banks, including the largest [...]

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Loan Modification Scammers Preying on Hispanic Homeowners

by Moe Bedard

The scams are as varied as ingenuity allows. Just when we thought we have seen every variety, we see something new,” says Richard Farrell, chief of the new Real Estate Fraud unit at the offices of Brooklyn D.A. Charles Hynes.
“We still have people forging deeds, powers of attorney, selling buildings to straw buyers,” says Farrell. [...]

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Fannie and Freddie Still Hurting Big Time

by Moe Bedard

On Dec. 24, Treasury said there would be no limit to the taxpayer money it was willing to deploy over the next three years to keep the two companies afloat, doing away with the previous limit of $200 billion per company. So far, the government has handed the two companies a total of about $111 [...]

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Maryland to Send Homeowners to Jail Who Vandalize Homes on Exit

by Moe Bedard

ANNAPOLIS, MD. — Maryland tenants and homeowners who vandalize or put graffiti on residential properties going through foreclosure could face steep fines and jail time under legislation proposed in Annapolis.
Delegate Andrew Serafini, R-Washington County, is sponsoring the measure,

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Lawyers and Real Estate Barrons Continue to Swindle Homeowners

by Moe Bedard

“It was so scary. I was just furious,” Kemp told reporters Thursday when it was announced that an unscrupulous attorney and his sidekick were responsible for “stealing” her home and using it to secure a $225,000 mortgage — two of a dozen charlatans in Kings County District Attorney Charles Hynes’ ever growing real estate rogues [...]

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Beware of Firms Who Promise Loan Modification Quick Fixes

by Moe Bedard

Dear Mr. Berko: I contacted the Crowder Law Group to assist me with a loan modification. The people I talked to were very nice, and I have sent them two $600 checks and now they want another $600, but they haven’t done anything for me. I heard them on satellite radio and they sounded really [...]

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Too many people are calling and are applying when they really don’t need the assistance

by Moe Bedard

Patricia Garcia-Duarte, CEO of NHS Phoenix, says, “Last year, in 2009, about 60 percent of people who came through our doors were able to avoid foreclosure.” NHS offers free loan counseling. Employees have special training in the loan modification process.

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Homeowners Rent Out Rooms to Stop Foreclosure

by Moe Bedard

While renting out a room has been around for years, especially in the South Bay’s Latino neighborhoods, sharing a home in order to save it has become an increasingly popular way to hang on to the front-door keys to the American dream.
“I’m up against a wall and I had no other place to turn for [...]

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Migrating Americans Finding No Hope in New Towns

by Moe Bedard

Large outflows of income from Louisiana went to Texas, even as the state gained households. The new arrivals tended to have less education, and income, than those who left the state.
“It’s an interesting time right now because we’re gaining population,” said LSU sociologist Tony Blanchard. “However you have to look under the numbers and temper [...]

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California Loan Modification Firms Preying on Arizona Consumers

by Moe Bedard

A ban on up-front fees, Boucek said, will enable her office’s consumer fraud division to crack down on the scam artists. And she said the problem is getting worse, as almost all of the other states in the region already have such laws, including one adopted by California just last year.
“Since they passed that law [...]

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Foreclosure Nightmare Mentally Affecting Countless Americans

by Moe Bedard

MERCED — Three weeks ago, a retired telephone company worker named Ethelda Lopez watched as her dream retirement home was auctioned on the lawn outside the county courthouse in downtown Merced.
“When I heard my address, it was so disheartening,” she said. For six months, she had made hundreds of calls to her mortgage company, federal [...]

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Florida Loan Modification Firms No Longer Allowed to Roam Free

by Moe Bedard

The days of simply opening up shop and starting a loan modification business have come to an end in Florida. Individuals or businesses providing loan modification services must now be licensed as a mortgage broker by the Florida Office of Financial Regulation (OFR) in order to conduct business.

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3 Orlando Unlicensed Loan Modification Firms Sued

by Moe Bedard

The state Office of Financial Regulation launched a statewide campaign Thursday against unlicensed companies that are modifying mortgages, announcing charges against three Orlando businesses.
The administrative charges are the result of a new state requirement that all loan-modification services be licensed by the agency.
The companies charged are:

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21st Century Legal: Florida Attorney General Files Lawsuit

by Moe Bedard

California Company Sued for Foreclosure Rescue Fraud - Other states have sued 21st Century Legal Services, and the FBI raided several of the company’s California offices in mid-September.
TALLAHASSEE, FL – Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that his office has filed a lawsuit against a California company providing loan modification services to homeowners facing foreclosure. According [...]

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FTC to Ban Up-front Loan Modification Fees

by Moe Bedard

FTC Proposes Rule That Would Bar Mortgage Relief Companies From Charging Up-Front Fees
The Federal Trade Commission moved to protect distressed homeowners from the promoters of bogus foreclosure rescue and mortgage modification services by proposing a new rule that would forbid companies to charge up-front for these services. Instead, companies could only collect payment after providing [...]

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Salt Lake City FBI & Utah Division of Real Estate Name Top Five Mortgage Scams

by Moe Bedard

Salt Lake City FBI and Utah Division of Real Estate Name Top Five Mortgage Scams in 2010 – Special Agents and State Investigators Warn Utahns to Beware

Is someone letting you live in a home for free?
Did a builder offer you deep discounts to move into a newly constructed house?
Has a company offered to refinance your [...]

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Chase denying loan modifications for a forbidden reason

by Moe Bedard

On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, Lesa Herron of Santa Rosa, Calif., opened a letter from Chase Home Finance [1] (PDF). She’d been denied a permanent modification under the federal government’s loan-mod program, Chase said, because “Your hardship is not of a permanent nature.” No other reason was given.

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Is it moral to walk away from your underwater mortgage and unforgiving lender

by Moe Bedard

Real estate prices have dropped about 30 percent since their peak in 2006. As a result, something like ten million American homeowners owe the bank more than their houses are now worth. More than half of them are stuck with mortgages that are more than 20 percent higher than the value of their homes. They [...]

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Non-profit housing exec quits saying he lost faith in the Obama administration’s loan modification program

by Moe Bedard

Randall Guerra, a veteran of the housing industry, was executive director of the Community Housing Council in Fresno, which uses the federal Making Home Affordable program to try to help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure.
But “Making Home Affordable is not working,” said Guerra, who quit Jan. 29 after 18 months on the job. “I had a [...]

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Florida’s courts are being overrun by home foreclosures

by Moe Bedard

The state Supreme Court released a summary Thursday that showed almost 400,000 foreclosures were filed in 2009, including nearly 113,000 alone in heavily populated Broward and Miami-Dade counties in southeast Florida.
The justices adopted recommendations in December that ordered local judges to start a mediation program to help pare down the number.
With nearly 367,000 filings in [...]

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More homeowners walking away from underwater mortgages

by Moe Bedard

“People like me are beginning to feel like suckers,” Mr. Koellmann said. “Why not let it go in default and rent a better place for less?”
After three years of plunging real estate values, after the bailouts of the bankers and the revival of their million-dollar bonuses, after the Obama

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Ohio AG Sues Two California Firms: United Law Group & Guardian Services

by Moe Bedard

Cordray Sues two California Rescue Operations for Scamming Ohioans Facing Foreclosure – 2/3/2010
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) – Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray this week named United Law Group, Inc. (ULG), a California law firm founded by California attorney Sean Alan Rutledge, in a lawsuit for bilking Ohioans who faced foreclosure out of thousands of dollars. The lawsuit [...]

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This is a recipe for the greatest commercial depression EVER!

by Moe Bedard

Who spiked the bankers cool aid? Or better yet, I think these guys must have been smoking some wacky tobaccy at their latest shin dig in Las Vegas this week.
The article below is titled, “Optimism Trumps Gloom at MBA Real Estate Finance Conference in Glitter City.”  Apparantly the Mortgage Bankers Association is predicting a better year [...]

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Lenders start going after foreclosed homeowners for monies owed

by Moe Bedard

Former homeowners may still be on the hook if there’s a difference between what they owed on their mortgage and what the bank could sell it for at auction. And these “deficiency judgments” are ticking time bombs that can explode years after borrowers lose their homes.
It can even happen to people who got their bank [...]

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Banks winning with second mortgages?

by Moe Bedard

If you thought all the bank bailouts were over, take a look at what is happening with lenders’ holdings of junior, or “second-lien,” mortgages.
These loans stand behind the first mortgage and, in theory, should take a loss before first mortgages in any workout aimed at keeping a borrower in a

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Homeless shelter in Atlanta facing foreclosure

by Moe Bedard

ATLANTA — A new lender has foreclosed a massive shelter that houses hundreds of Atlanta homeless each night.
Bob Cramer, chairman of the board Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, confirmed Wednesday that the group had received a foreclosure

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Plan for mortgage principal reductions pitched to Congress

by Moe Bedard

NEW YORK, Feb 3 (Reuters) – A group of influential mortgage investors is intensifying efforts to encourage a new phase to U.S. housing stability plans that would give homeowners ability and incentive to pay their loans.
Proposals from a coalition led by Fortress Investment Group address the problem of “underwater” loans, whose high balances relative to [...]

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Infinity Group Services: Kahram Zamani Faces 113 Years in Prison For Loan Modification Scam

by Moe Bedard

The CEO of another Orange County, California loan modification firm in Irvine pleaded not guilty last week to defrauding 165 homeowners out of thousands of dollars.  He is currently facing 113 years in prison if he is convicted on all the current pending charges.

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Deleware Church or Faith Based Group Charged With Scamming Homeowners

by Moe Bedard

Master Builders for Christ and Vision Builders Christian Center, along with three of its principals, have been charged in a 21-count indictment in Delaware, on charges of running a massive mortgage rescue scam.
Warrants have been issued for the arrest of Jamaar Manlove, Larry Manlove, and Rhonda Manlove, and racketeering liens have been placed on

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Loan Modification Scams Continue to Burn Homeowners

by Moe Bedard

Housing advocates warn homeowners to beware of groups guaranteeing reductions in their mortgage payments through loan modifications. No one, including non-profit housing counselors, can promise a mortgage modification.
The legislation would allow Arizona prosecutors to charge foreclosure consultants “who engage in conduct that constitutes fraud or deceit against a

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REI Exchange & TMG Ventures: Oregon Authorities Target Anthony “Tony” Schwartz

by Moe Bedard

The Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services reported Tuesday it has issued a cease-and-desist order and assessed $250,000 in fines against Anthony “Tony” Schwartz and two businesses he controlled for selling interests in foreclosed homes he seized in a complex “foreclosure rescue” scheme.
Schwartz, who owned REI Exchange, LLC and TMG Ventures, Inc. in the

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Treasury May Have New Tests for Loan Modifications

by Moe Bedard

Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Treasury Department is considering changes to its “net present value” test used to determine whether lenders can write off mortgage principal for borrowers seeking more affordable loan terms.
The Obama administration’s main foreclosure prevention plan uses the standard to measure whether lenders and bond investors would net more money over [...]

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Fannie and FHA Pushing the Sales of Foreclosures

by Moe Bedard

Starting today home “Flippers” are now welcome at the FHA.
That’s right, with a glut of foreclosures plaguing the nation’s neighborhoods, the FHA is temporarily removing restrictions on investors who buy and sell homes within 90 days.

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Choice Loan Consulting & Jordan Ruzicka: AZ Loan Mod Firm in the Hot Seat

by Moe Bedard

“What happened to all that money?” we asked.
“It was put into operations, it’s actually a pretty lengthy and expensive process to do these loan modifications,” Jordan said.

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2010 Housing Crisis Will Be Even Uglier

by Moe Bedard

The housing report card is ugly. In the past two years, the housing market has lost an estimated $4.9 trillion dollars, as 59 million homes have declined in value.
Nearly 1 in 4 homeowners — 10.7 million households nationwide — are underwater on their mortgages. They owe more than their home is now worth.

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Solving the Mortgage Mess With Loan Modifications and Borrower Modifications

by Moe Bedard

Day points to two changes that need to be made to the program in order to see greater success: It must be mandatory for lenders rather than voluntary, and it must attack the principal of the loans rather than just the interest rates. Giving bankruptcy judges the power to modify mortgages on primary residences would [...]

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John Varner: Mortgage One Corp. Broker Sentenced to 13 Year for Defrauding HUD

by Moe Bedard

RIVERSIDE – The former president of Mortgage One Corporation in Hesperia was sentenced Monday to 13 years in federal prison for defrauding the Department of Housing and Urban Development and private lenders.
John Varner, 56, fraudulently obtained hundreds of federally insured loans and sold the mortgages to private lenders in a scheme that resulted in tens [...]

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Need to Stop Foreclosure? List of Foreclosure Prevention Workshops

by Moe Bedard

FREE Foreclosure Prevention Workshops for Consumers – Looking to stop foreclosure and need FREE foreclosure prevention advice? Do you want to avoid being scammed by loan modification sharks? Then please attend one of these foreclosure workshops for homeowners sponsored by a community-based organization in your area.
Please click on the ‘Event Details’ links for dates and [...]

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Does Freddie Mac Own Your Mortgage? Get Help at Freddie Mac’s New Borrower Help Centers

by Moe Bedard

Homeowners who are behind on their home loans and who want to avoid foreclosure can get free help with loan modifications at one of the Freddie Mac homeowner help centers located across the nation.
Freddie Mac has partnered with nonprofits across the country and is assisting both homeowners who have not searched help before and people [...]

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HUD to Send More Housing Counselors to Las Vegas

by Moe Bedard

WASHINGTON — The HUD secretary said today he is immediately dispatching a three-person foreclosure rapid-response team to Las Vegas and plans to add a total of eight new members to its Clark County office to deal with the housing crisis.

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Conecticut AG Warns Law Firms, Banks and Real Estate Companies To Stop Illegal Evictions

by Moe Bedard

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal announced today a new initiative to aid tenants of foreclosed properties — including cease-and-desist letters urging law firms, real estate companies and banks and loan servicers to stop abrupt and illegal evictions.
Blumenthal’s office has received complaints from tenants hastily and illegally forced out of rental homes after their landlords’ properties were [...]

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More Homeowners Using the Federal Loan Modification Program

by Moe Bedard

Unfortunately, Davis says unemployment alone *may not* be enough because loan modification is temporary.
The homeowner must be able to afford the original payment when the modification ends. “if they have no income at all, they lost their job entirely, that is a hardship by since they have no ability to pay back they would not [...]

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Foreclosure Mediation in Maryland

by Moe Bedard

Gov. Martin O’Malley wants to make mediation a part of the foreclosure process in Maryland, offering it as one way to head off more avoidable trips to the auction block. Mediation has popped up in other states, but not in the same way everywhere. So what’s the plan here?
Kathleen Skullney, the staff attorney for the [...]

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Nevada AG: Las Vegas Loan Mod CEO Pleads Guilty to Mortgage Fraud

by Moe Bedard

ATTORNEY GENERAL ANNOUNCES GUILTY PLEA IN FORECLOSURE RESCUE SCAM OPERATED FROM THE PHILIPPINES
Las Vegas, NV— Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto
announced today that defendant Michael Sinclair has pled guilty to one (1)
Category B felony count of Mortgage Fraud in violation of NRS 205.372(2), for fraudulently operating a foreclosure rescue scam in Las Vegas under the
business [...]

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