Loan Deals: News

Channel 3 Eyewitness news is reporting a way for scam artists to suck in more loan modification victims, telemarketing dialers with pre-recorded messages.  According to the website, Universal Modification is a fake company and the Department of Banking said they are not authorized to do business and were fined $10,000 accordingly.

“Unless you’re paying a local attorney to appear for you in court, there’s no reason to pay anybody,” said Jeff Gentes, of the Connecticut Fair Housing Center.

Gentes is a foreclosure attorney working with the Connecticut Fair Housing Center in Hartford.

He said he hears from people who were scammed all the time and said while people barely have to pay attention to find offers of modification, a better approach is to seek out a Housing and Urban Development certified housing counselor.

The counselors work for free and can actually help.

Mortgage

What the scam (or allegedly scam artists), don’t realize when stealing money from loan modification victims, is they aren’t just stealing money from these people; they are the reason these people are losing their home.

For what? A few thousand dollars? I’m sorry but loan modification firms just piss me off.

According to NBCWashington.com:

The federal government’s response to the crisis included programs to support struggling homeowners by modifying their mortgages at no expense to borrowers. But a two-year investigation by federal, state and local agencies uncovered an alleged fraud scam that preyed upon the poor.

Shmuckler, who worked out of offices in Northern Virginia, is charged with swindling 10 local homeowners, collecting thousands of dollars in fees, promising to help them reduce their monthly payments, and then making off with their money.

“You had very vulnerable victims here who were taken advantage of and really lost the American dream, [and] lost their homes as a result of this scam,” said Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey.

Mortgage

Loan Modification scam companies are nothing new, however, I thought most of them were gone by now. But apparently that’s not the case. In California recently a friend of mine has just found out that after 10 months of waiting around, the company they hired to help with the loan mod have not done anything. Another guy that runs a loan modification company next door to my office, well, loan modification Scam Company that is. A simple google search of his names shows up a lot of complaints. I was trying to figure out why he changed names recently lol

Anyway, even though most states have stopped going after these companies, the state of Virginia is proving they still care.

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli alleges the American Neighborhood Housing Foundation - which has offices in Chesapeake and Richmond - violates Virginia’s consumer-protection laws. His office filed a lawsuit last week in Circuit Court.

More specifically, Cuccinelli claimed in the suit that the foundation improperly collected advance fees before performing the services paid for and made “false promises… when it represented or guaranteed it would stop a customer’s scheduled foreclosure,” when many times it only delayed them, if that.

you can read the rest of the article here: http://hamptonroads.com/2010/11/virginia-sues-firm-over-loanmodification-practices

Mortgage

If you don’t owe a lot of money, it might be smarter to deal with it on your ownDebt settlement could be the new scam – or not…

Over the past few years I have seen lawmakers go overboard and fight those that actually, in some cases, help people. Sure there are bad apples but you can’t create laws for a few.

Debt Settlement is one of those things.

I am not a writer, I am not an editor, I am not a professor of any kind and in fact, I am a nobody. But I do care. Here are some tips that might help you to not get scammed:

1)    Do your research. This means check everything from domain names and when they were registered, to BBB (even though the whole bbb thing in my opinion is just a big scam), to doing google searches, search everything from the phone number to the address. Look for things like other businesses at the same address/suite or other businesses that use that same number (or used to). These should set off red flags

2)    Debt Settlement companies for the most part will collect money for a set time period, then, at that time, attempt to settle that debt. During this time the money should be in an account in YOUR NAME where you get interest. At any time that you want to get out, the MONEY IS YOURS.. YES… The money, MINUS FEES, is yours.

3)    FEES: Yes guys, nobody works for free, you are settling for in most cases pennies on the dollar, they deserve their money. Make sure you know up front how much you are paying. Also know that in most cases, fees are paid in the beginning and NOT at the end. READ THE FINE PRINT!

4)    If you don’t owe a lot of money, it might be smarter to deal with it on your own

Mortgage

In an attempt to pretend to care about homeowners, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is considering implementing Loan Modification guidelines and tests for those that want to offer the service.

“One of the things we saw over and over during the boom was that a bad actor would work at a shop for several months, frequently ending up as the ‘top producer,’ and then leave for presumably greener pastures,” Fulmer said in an e-mail. “In actuality, they usually left because their bad loans were about to start blowing up and, if they stayed, they’d be discovered.”

Loan Modifications

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees compliance with the SAFE Act, has proposed that employees handling loan modifications for struggling homeowners also meet the licensing requirements, a policy opposed by banks. Mandating licenses for loan modification specialists would slow hiring and stall efforts to reduce foreclosures, said John Courson, CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association.

read the full article here

Mortgage

RealtyTrac reported that nearly 38,000 Broward homes were in some stage of foreclosure during the first half of 2010. While this is ten percent down on the previous six months, the number of homes that the lenders are repossessing is up.

Everybody was hoping to get a principal reduction on their mortgage. Obama’s loan modification program was touted by many as a solution to this crisis. Homeowners are now discovering that they were not able to qualify for the much heralded loan modification schemes and are letting their homes go.

you can read the full article here

Mortgage

People seeking loan modifications beware — most of the companies that offer them are not licensed, and some are set up just to steal cash.

Over a six-month investigation, 5 Investigates found dozens of people victimized by scam loan modification companies.

Fernando Sanchez was one of the victims. He was barely making ends meet when he heard about an opportunity to reduce his mortgage, from $2,300 per month to $900 per month.

“They told me to go to this meeting to see what it was about … and these people allegedly have an attorney and a translator,” he said.

Sanchez paid $1,000 to sit in a garage in a residential neighborhood set up with tables and chairs for the meeting. The attorney charged $6,000 for the loan modification.

To read the full article go here to kpho’s website.

Mortgage

27 existing centers have served 60,000 families already

NEW YORK - Chase today announced that it is opening 24 more Chase Homeownership Centers in the next four months to provide face-to-face help to thousands more homeowners who are struggling with their mortgage payments. That will bring the total to 51 Chase Homeownership Centers in 14 states and Washington D.C.

“Our first 27 centers have proven to very effective in reaching families who are facing financial hardship and have fallen behind on their mortgages. So, we are adding more locations to help more homeowners with their loans, including working with them to complete and assemble all the documents we need to provide permanent payment relief” said Charlie Scharf, head of Retail Financial Services at Chase, the consumer business of JPMorgan Chase.

Chase is the only major mortgage servicer that has opened a large network of face-to-face centers to help struggling homeowners understand their options and help pull together paperwork for loan modifications. Borrowers can schedule appointments or simply walk in six days a week. In 11 months, Chase Homeownership Centers have served more than 60,000 borrowers.

Using languages including Spanish and Vietnamese, center staffers also reach out to homeowners through hundreds of community foreclosure-prevention fairs and through non-profit counselors. In addition, Chase has mailed 538,000 letters to struggling borrowers living near a center.

Responding to the needs of homeowners who have been hit hard by the housing and economic downturns, Chase will have centers in six new markets:

* Cleveland, 1500 West 3rd St.
* Dallas, 12750 Merit Dr.
* Houston, 11550 Fuqua St.
* Boca Raton, Fla.
* Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
* Seattle, Wash.

In addition, Chase will open 18 Chase Homeownership Centers to supplement existing centers. A total of seven new Chase Homeownership Centers will be in California, bringing the total number of Chase centers in California to 16; the six additional Florida centers will make the total 11.

In 2009, Chase approved more than 568,000 new trial modifications under the U.S. Making Home Affordable Program, its own modification program and Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, VA and FHA programs.

For information, borrowers struggling with Chase, WaMu or EMC-serviced loans can go to www.chase.com/myhome or call (866) 550-5705.

Chase services about 10.3 million loans, including about 8 million loans for investors.

About Chase
Chase is the U.S. consumer and commercial banking business of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), which operates more than 5,100 branches and 15,000 ATMs nationally under the Chase brand. Chase has 146 million credit cards issued and serves consumers and small businesses through bank branches, ATMs and mortgage offices as well as through relationships with auto dealerships and schools and universities. More information about Chase is available at www.chase.com.

Loan Modification, Mortgage