Another loan modification scam company? maybe….
I go through loan modification news daily to keep this site updated as well as to keep myself informed about the new topics and issues around loan modification. Every day I see fake news articles designed for one thing – to generate traffic to a site that maybe should be reconsidered before you do business with them.
One such site, About California Loan Modification (dot) com –(sorry for not making it a link , don’t care to generate traffic for these guys) had a press release earlier on a free site pr-insider.com. The press release talks about a “Mr. A” and quotes him as complementing the work of said loan modification lawyer for taking a “gun to a gun fight” and saving him “well over $100,000”
The article quotes one “Art Franklin” the “VP’ of the company who speaks quite like “Mr A.” when he said “You wouldn’t expect to take a knife to a gun fight and actually win”
I did a little research on this Art Franklin, who isn’t a practicing lawyer here in California, and also checked with the department of corporation’s website to verify that there is no such corporation “About California Loan Modifications” - but I didn’t need to do all this before I started getting red flags.
The third red flag, after the first two in the article, was the website itself. A free site from www.alamode.com (notice the advertisements on the bottom of the page?), how about no contact information except for a phone number? And a hotmail email address? They can’t afford… oh wait, emails are free these days, even for custom domains….
A quick search on the said hotmail email address shows one Frank Arbizu uses it, and he also has a ytb travel account (multi level travel agency company).
Company: Popo’s Online Travel Agency
Contact Name: Frank Arbizu
Contact Email: fbeezer739@hotmail.com
Contact Phone: 9092408715
Some common sense rules when it comes to ANY kind of an online company:
1) Make sure there is more then just a phone number as a point of contact, with services like google voice, ureach, and other such services 800 numbers are free, and just pennies per minute - so everybody can get toll free numbers to trick people into thinking they are legit.
2) Dont trust corporate websites with advertisment on them - that is not a good sign.
3) If the quotes in the “press release” seem like they are writen by a 15 year old, chances are they are - RUN
4) Do your research, check bbb, check google, check ripoffreport.com.. just CHECK
5) Always, Always, Always go with your gut.
