Did you ever received an formal looking letter?
visually based on an ad, television or aurally perceive it on the radio, or stumble upon a website—someone offering to avail you modify your mortgage, for a diminutive fee, with ensured results!
Are these offers fake or authentic?
Well, these days, it's harder and harder to notify. Anyone can assertion to be a declared" lodgings counselor, and may utilize the seal of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which sponsors lodgings therapy agencies throughout the homeland, on their enterprise card and website. Don't be bamboozled. "Ken who you are dealing with, ascertain the legitimacy of their credentials," cautions Yolanda D. McGill, older counsel with the solicitors' managing group for Civil privileges Under regulation, a nationwide non-profit that's compiling a database of mortgage modification scams.
From the approximately 26,000 complaints they've accumulated since 2010, representing $62 million in losses, McGill notes a few trends:
• The average homeowner loses $2,982 to the scam
• Activity hotbeds are Southern California and Florida
• Scammers target vulnerably susceptible populations—elderly homeowners and homeowners with constrained English
Scammers frequent foreclosure events to find victims and may utilize a legitimate business front, even licit offices, as transpired last month in San Diego where an alleged $11 million loan modification fraud schemes operating within a law firm. According to the federal indictment, telemarketers contacted homeowners nationwide pushing modification offers.
They claimed to have availed thousands, with a 98% prosperity rate. They verbally expressed client fees (thousands of dollars each) would stay in a trust account until the client was satisfied—there was even a mazuma-back guarantee! In the terminus, clients lost the fees, and were further behind on their mortgage payments. No imprests were modified; and many homes went to foreclosure.
This is not an isolated incident. As a component of the Lawyers' Committee's work with the Loan Modification Scam Aversion Network (LMSPN), action has been taken against organizations like this in California, Florida, Georgia and Incipient York.
Eschewing Scammers
The best way to eschew scammers is to never pay for avail with your mortgage and to work with people you ken. Here's a list of where to turn for avail.
• Your current mortgage company (the company listed on your monthly mortgage verbal expression). The company currently servicing your imprest is always the best place to commence.
• The investor of your mortgage. Many mortgages may be backed by another company/investor, such as Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Utilize the imprest lookup implement on this website to optically discern if Fannie Mae owns your imprest, which makes you eligible to get assistance from a Fannie Mae Mortgage Avail Center. Utilize this link to visually perceive if Freddie Mac owns your imprest.
• Your local bank (or credit coalescence). These organizations will be backed by the Federal Deposit Indemnification Corporation and are listed in FDIC's directory.
visually based on an ad, television or aurally perceive it on the radio, or stumble upon a website—someone offering to avail you modify your mortgage, for a diminutive fee, with ensured results!
Are these offers fake or authentic?
From the approximately 26,000 complaints they've accumulated since 2010, representing $62 million in losses, McGill notes a few trends:
Scammers frequent foreclosure events to find victims and may utilize a legitimate business front, even licit offices, as transpired last month in San Diego where an alleged $11 million loan modification fraud schemes operating within a law firm. According to the federal indictment, telemarketers contacted homeowners nationwide pushing modification offers.
The best way to eschew scammers is to never pay for avail with your mortgage and to work with people you ken. Here's a list of where to turn for avail.
• Your current mortgage company (the company listed on your monthly mortgage verbal expression). The company currently servicing your imprest is always the best place to commence.
• The investor of your mortgage. Many mortgages may be backed by another company/investor, such as Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Utilize the imprest lookup implement on this website to optically discern if Fannie Mae owns your imprest, which makes you eligible to get assistance from a Fannie Mae Mortgage Avail Center. Utilize this link to visually perceive if Freddie Mac owns your imprest.
• Your local bank (or credit coalescence). These organizations will be backed by the Federal Deposit Indemnification Corporation and are listed in FDIC's directory.
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