I have to tell you plainly, this makes my gut turn over and it is sickening.  The public cannot be this nieve.  Or are they?  I think not.  It is time to stop this type of sleezy scams.

Before I became a broker in 1997 I used to work as a journalist. The rule was always get as close to the source as possible to verify the information. This helps in most cases, even in Real Estate :-). Did anybody try to contact the Serviceprovider asking what this is all about? If not, all the above is guessing. Just my 2cents. All the best from Berlin Germany

Should anyone (especially in a forum like this) really be surprised?

There is an underclass in the business sector of our culture that has always preyed on the desperate and un-informed. (I would would submit that the primary cause of this foreclosure mess can be laid on the doorstep of all of us who turned a blind eye to practise of real estate agents, mortgage people, bankers, appraiser, regulators.)

Seriously, who did not think there was something wrong with selling real estate because it was "only a few dollars a month more...

So the market dried up in the real estate sales/financing arena, why would they not move on to the foreclosure rescue/prevention/mod market?

Sort of beautiful in an amoral, efficient way! Advantage the system and get people to buy things they cannot afford, then work the market when they lose the thing you sold them. And make more money.

Who did not see this coming?

Caveat Emptor! This has to come back to our shoulders, we need to educate, educate, educate. We can certainly name call until the cows come home, but until we educate the public about these nefarious people, we are going to have more and more of these scams pop up. We must concern ourselves with what we can do,(educate) not what bad things are going on (scam artists). Good post!

Where there is opportunity, there will be opportunists!  It's time for everyone to step up and be responsible for their actions if we're going to see our way out of this.  In some cases foreclosures are unavoidable as in the case of job loss, health issues, divorce but to simply give up just because of poor market conditions bothers me and to work the system is even worse.   There is a bigger picture here and we must all work together to stabelize the market.  Realtors and Lenders need to work together to close short sales as quickly as possible so we can get through this.  The opportunists should be punished for their actions just as price gougers during other crisis.   What's happening with loan mods??  I haven't heard any good news about that.   Don't lenders have funds to try to keep people in their homes?  

Judy Chapman wrote:  On a recent listing appointment, the owner confessed she had paid a 'loan modification expert' $3000 to do for her what she could have done for herself. 

Anyone can sell their own home, too, but I'm sure you would advise against it.  In my opinion, negotiating your own loan modification is like negotiating your own hostage release.  That's why the lender's representative always says at the beginning of every conversation,  “This is an attempt to collect a debt.  Any information obtained will be used for that purpose."  It takes a lot of time, patience and knowing what you're doing to achieve a modification that is beneficial to the homeowner.  Understandably, some people would rather pay someone to do this for them.  

Well, having been on the unwitting end of several people who were just using me to forestall a shortsale and to stay in their home as long as possible, I think that those people should go to people who will help them meet their objective.  That way honest people who truly want to do a short sale, can find me and get a short sale done.  Twice, I have had short sales approved by Countrywide, yes, Countrywide, and my seller tell me that I got it done too quick, they were not ready to move.  Both times they refused to sign either the Addendum removing their short sale contingency or would not come to title and sign off on the loan documents.  How extremely frustrating to the buyer, the buyer's agent, my negotiators as well as a wasted nine months for me.  Let those who want to use the system find the right person to help them do it versus those of us, who want to be paid for the honest work received. 

I also forgot to ad, in one instance, the seller told me that he would sign the loan documents if I gave him one-half of my commission.  I did not.  In another instance, the seller told me that he would sell only if I gave his buddy, a referral fee.  His buddy had not referred him, had not done one day's work and came in to the picture, to check my files and to make sure that I had properly protected his buddy, the day after we were notified that loan documents were at title.  I told his buddy that the only file that would be checked would be his by the DRE if he did not stop interfering with my transaction with a represented person. 

Just reading the responses is an education.  Living in Vermont with month by month the lowest or nearly lowest foreclosure rate in the country we just don't see this.  The one short sale our office got involved in didn't fly because the buyer figured they could steal the place and the bank wasn't that ready.  Remember when cigarettes were banned from TV advertising, how about the same for on line mortgage companies!?!

It sounds like none of you have ever tried to do a loan modification yourself, or ran into someone who has done one themselves. Do you know most people who do loan mod themselves end up getting foreclosed in in less than a year because they didn't know how to negotiate properly with the bank to get terms that they could really afford? They get strong armed by the bank into agreeing with terms that they really can't afford in the long run. You might say, what about those "free" loan mods. They rarely get done because they are so back logged. Do we really expect attorneys, or anyone for that matter to work for free to get the loan mods done? I don't work for free, do you? I work with a company that does offer a money back guarantee. We don't advertise for it. They don't get all their money back if it doesn't happen, but they get most of it. There are scammers out there, but there are also legitimate companies. It's too bad it's only the bad stuff we hear about. But that's the way of the the media. People need to be educated. That is the key so people don't get taken advantage of. As a Realtor, I think that is part of our job. And then after you educate them, what is the solution going to be?

What's wrong with keeping people in their homes and using the foreclosure crisis to bring in revenue for such a service? Fact of the matter, most foreclosures are fruadulent and a keen eye can halt foreclosure easily.....many families view that as a service. What is your service? Sell them another home they cannot afford. ha 

I agree, there are many predators out there, however, the cottage industry that has arose because of the housing crash is necessary to bring about the bottoming out.

Realtors were very much a part of this problem, lets not forget that on our high horses, considering everyone is scrambling to list REOs and Short sales.....as if you are any better than the bottom feeders.

Malcom Harrison is an attorney in Wellington Fl who has between 200 and 300 people signed up to send him $300 a month to keep them out of foreclosure. One woman I know has been paying him for over 2 years -- and it has worked so far.   When another client of mine rescinded her agreement saying she would pay him for work done, but did not want to keep him on a stipend; he threatened her with a letter saying "you will see just what it was I have been doing for you when they come after you. Good luck."

What a racket, he fills out the form letters and gets paid. But it seems to be keeping people in their homes. Just don't cross him. This lady is now being served her foreclosure papers.

Donna Brown

How is it that so many of you assume the ad is a scam? Perhaps the foreclosure market and people finding help are way ahead of you. Not everything is a scam because it has a fee attached. Due to their experience Some FSBO's think Realtors are scamming the market.

The fact is that there are many ways to stop a foreclosure or slow it down. Do some research on "produce the note" on you tube and look for the CNN spot of the Congresswoman in Ohio encouraging her constituents to get sufficient help during the default/foreclosure process and make the banks produce the note.

I know for myself what I have had to do to stop the bank from just "taking" my home...ignoring short sale offers, stringing out my effort for a loan modification and denying me due process, not having the original note and other technical violations on my loan.

Learn more about this as you will be in a position to help people find some recourse in dealing with this financial blood bath.

Don McCoy

Exit Realty Group

Southern Oregon

sorry to burst the bubble of those who somehow (I'm sure none of you active agents sold anyone a home that has gone down in value) don't seem to want to take ANY responsibility for this downturn, but

FIRST...those of you who keep saying you are dealing with a bank...duh...what banks...these are loan pool servicers who have licensed the names of banks and shot off into partnerships which, as a REMIC, these servicer/lenders ARE NOT allowed to own the loans that they are telling you to submit short sale/loan mod documents...part of the issue is that the world has changed and most real estate professionals have no idea what a cusip is, a bloomberg loan pool number is, or even that there is something known as the trust indenture act of 1939...time to get into the 21st century and understand that just because it said the word MORTGAGE loan on it does not mean that it was or remained that way...

SECOND...to make ugly profits and deprive borrowers of the real low interest rates being passed thru on these financing instruments(start using the right terms), the depositers/sponsers would use the splitting up process available in a REMIC loan pool tranche, to synthsize the pass thru elements, and earn 30 - 250% on the upper non AAA rated tranches...how did they do that with a loan paying only 5% ??? Because by getting a ratings agency(s&P or moody's) to rate the majority of the paper in the pool structure AAA(70-80% of the loans), then they would resell the pass thru instruments to YOUR money market accounts...and how much have money market accounts been paying in the last 5 years ??? Pretty darn low rates...they would keep and repackage the rest of the finacial stream...for those of you who actual know how to use an HP-12c, make sure you are sitting down when you do the math...

THIRD...that was not enough profits...they then turned around and sold derivatives on the different parts of the tranches...the best way to describe what a derivative is(for those who can think beyond the first day of real estate agent school)it's like an option to purchase a home...but what if someone sold multiple options on the same home ??(for those who say you can't, as long as it is disclosed and the price point of the other options are built in and disclosed it can be done)...but what if that was not enough greed on the loan pool investor side...what if you then realized that no one was watching and you started trading naked option positions, justifying it by saying you can always buy them back later...THAT is why the system froze up on August 7, 2007, when BNP Paribas REFUSED to pay out on derivative positions it had taken fees on to insure some positions tied to American Home Mortgage which had folded the day before...and if you want to get a better understanding of what I just said and why it matters google this [delphi +derivatives +bankruptcy ] and it will bring you to some reports that described that in the delphi bankruptcy(which is still not over), there were about 2 billion in actual bonds outstanding but there were over 30 BILLION in derivative contracts with each party thinking they had bought the prime position...

FOURTH...just because SOMEONE shows up claiming you OWE SOMEONE money, does not mean the actual person who you owe money to is trying to collect...most FLORIDa foreclosures are being filed by and in the names of entities that do not show up as the owner of the debt in the county records and is not properly registered to do business in the State of Florida...and in some cases, are actually NOT passing thru the payments to the loan pool investors(billions of dollars in lawsuits currently on this issue)

SOOOOO.....stop thinking we are back in the days of George Bailey..those banking days are over...Since everyone wants to have 24 hour access to their money, every day is a bank run day...to insure there are no regular daily crashes, financial instruments were homogenized since the last S&L crisis, when REMIC's were created by the tax code in 1986...this was to allow financial institutions to trade in financial instruments to the central banking system to allow them to borrow funds overnight when more depositors yanked out money from their atm than was sitting on the cash side of the financials of the lender...what developed at the turn of the century was that by reducing the FEDERAL DEFICIT, Clinton actual hurt the banking system by removing US Treasuries from the pool of available capital...and THE ENTIRE WORLD needs US taxpayer backed FEDERAL DEFICIT CERTIFICATES commonly known as TREASURIES since there is not and has NEVER been enough GOLD to back up the worlds financial systems...AND then add in the crazy BASEL 2 rules designed to offset the lost decade of japanese banking but has turned into a mess that led overseas financial institutions to BEG WALL STREET to find some or create some AAA rated instruments so that they could keep growing...so what is some lonely wall street exec to do when someone is throwing money at them and insisting that SOMETHING be done....??? can you say NINJALOAN  ???

AND...aside from the work I have done as an investor in real estate, I do the legal assistant work for an attorney where we force the court and the attorney's filing the foreclosure to take note of the various problems with the filings and yes we take payment plans on our cases since many folks have not enough money to pay the full retainer up front...so ....YES...you can...AND SHOULD fight a foreclosure case since:

A) the person on the other side of the 800 # CAN NOT be the the owner of the note and is telling you a GIANT FIB...if somehow you are dealing with an instrument that was not designed to be resold(less than 15% of all loans made in the last 5 years)..ignore this fact

B)Many title companies have stoped providing over sized title policies on "short sales"...what do I mean by that,  Smart real estate investors pay an additional fee on purchase to get an oversized insurance policy...they buy a property that seems like a deal for 100K and pay for a title insurance policy for 200K..why...because if someone shows up one day and says they are owed money or they were the proper person to sell the property, the investor is covered up to the 200K...if the property goes up in value and the investor goes to the title insurance blanket underwriter with a regular policy, they are only required to pay out on the 100K..the rest of the money is GONE..lost PROFITS...and in seeing that many of the servicers are taking short cuts and not actually getting releases from all the investors tied to a specific loan or loan pool, the title companies are not looking to be on the hook for what they know are problems with the chain of title..for those of you who have done or are doing short sale deals...take a look at your E & O policies to see if you are covered on this type of an error/issue...

C) In Florida, just because you make a payment to someone who claims to be the agent for the loan pool investors does not mean you are covered.  There are appeal court rulings that have shown the borrower has an AFFIRMATIVE responsibility to know that the payments have gone to the rightful party OR they may have to pay a second time...

D) one of the largest foreclosure law firmsin Florida regularly has his office manager claim to have power of atty to sign in the name of the "lender"...so if the person on the other side of the 800 # at a "bank" is "able to negotiate" the short sale/loan mod" how come they can't get someone at that same "bank" to actually sign the release who is qualified and has the authority to do that ???

AND for the RECORD, the reason that a knowledgable attorney is able to hold off a case from moving to a judgment in the State of Florida(the atty mentioned earlier, from jacksonville, has been fighting a goldman sachs case for over 4 years) is that the law firms doing the foreclosure are cutting corners and in many cases are not actually authorized by the "owner of the note" to be going forward. 

SO PLEASE, stop snipping at people and start learning what has been going on right under your noses for the last 5 years and get in gear coming up with REAL solutions, not complaints or your own short cuts...

And for those of you who might not have any empathy for someone who lost their medical coverage and chose to fight cancer instead of paying the mortgage, the persons who lost a spouse in IRAQ and now has no income and is trying to work 2 jobs and finish school to keep a roof over their heads...yes there are a few people who come to us looking for the FREE CHEESE LINE, and we tell them to go live in their HUMMER and get out...and I know that the angel of jacksonville makes the clients she works with put money aside, they are NOT getting a free ride, and she insists they try to find a way to make things work including getting a second and third job if needed...so no one here gets to denegrate April in front of me without a fight...

Oh and finally, one of the reasons FLORIDA had to cut back on money for school children is that these loan pool instruments were being designed to AVOID paying taxes in Florida...we may not have any personal income taxes, but there are taxes and fee's that are designed to pay the bills in the State...There are estimates that over 6 BILLION dollars in moneys that should have been paid as these loan pool tranche certificates were traded back and forth, were not paid by WALL STREET...

think about that next time you hit a pot hole on a road here in the sunshine state...

The sad thing is that most of those ads are by marketing people and not people with the experience or license to get the job done. 

by the way, although agressive, I thought the points made by Mr. Morfesis were very useful.  One of the best posts I have read.

In all my days of selling Real Estate, and that has only been since 2007 when the market started to plunder, I have not seen so many scams and unethical practice by conartists as I have in the past 12 months! Targeting people who are struggling and trying to make ends meet, doing what they can to keep their way of life (or whats left of it) just so they can maintain their dignity, pick up the pieces, and go on, is WRONG! It should be treated like as crime of steering, blockbusting, discrimination, call it what you will, but the aim is to target a group of people in the same distress all for profitable gain! If that isn't discrimination I don't know what is!

I'm not sure I'm clear on your complaint. Is it the misspellings or the fact that companies are offering services to help homeowners. I don't believe that simply because the ad is misspelled or grammatically incorrect that it automatically means the advertiser is perpetuating a "scam" After all, your own tag line says "If you are facing foreclosure then please contact me. There are legal ways to avoid foreclosure" (you should remove the word "then" as it indicates the passage of time) . I'm confident that you provide a quality service, but the best way for a prospective client to know is to contact you, which is why you advertise.  Let's work together to bring attention to good companies like yours rather than focusing on the bad ones. When I train my staff I remind them.."you are good because you are good, not because your competition is bad".

You know, though there are more scammers coming out of the woodwork than Ive seen in 30 years business, its still incredible how many people are losing homes because they have NO idea whats going on and the stories of scams keep them away from possible help. Ive almost thrown up three time in just the last week over the loss of properties by people I personally know. In each case I found out after the fact that they simply deeded the props back to their lenders. They didnt know what short sales were. They didnt know about loa mods. The ALL HAD SOME EQUITY!!!  I tore my hair out and thought about placing big craigs list ads DONT LOSE YOUR HOME! Call me before you sign anything type ads but instantly felt sleezy and that people would look at me as sleeze. Still trying to figure a way to get to these poor people before they take losses w/o coming on like a snake oil salesman.

Ive helped people with loan mods and each one was EASY. Ive never charged for the service. In once case the owner just couldnt accept that I was doing it for free. He kept angling that there must be a catch and toward the end thought he had a EUREKA moment when he asked if the lender pays me for the service. I had to keep from laughing. Sure---the lender will pay me for helping them lose money! Be nice, eh?

Thousands of people really need help. We professionals have to try and shine through the cesspool of theives out there and do something for them.

Marvin Von Renchler

Hi and thanks for the education. What about if there was no  money involved?

Kieran Loughman

I just find it too bad that most people here are jumping to conclusions and posting that it is a scam. Although I dont know the particulars, it sounds to me that no one here knows them. Withouth any complaints with the BBB or other agencies, it could be quite viable and useful for some people to avoid foreclosure, buy some time for a short sale, let your kids finish up their school year, find a new place to live, save up money and maybe even find a way to save their home. Not everyone is a scam artist or will take advantage of an offer like this. I dont see the scam in this ad other than if if they can prolong it like they claim, the clients are scamming the company because it is worth more than $200 a month.

On a side note, I peruse realtor.com and other sites regularly, and to be honest with you, I would say that 1/3 of the listings have spelling errors in them or one liners of "will go fast" - when they have been listed for 100s of days. In my mind that means that maybe 1/4 of the people posting here make mistakes, and the the other 3/4 you must be the smartest people around.

To the people that think Morfesis was arrogant, I would say that he put a lot of people in their place and gave me a number of terms and subjects to look up and education myself on. If you all did less complaining about people and more educational reading, I bet 1/8 of you would know that it is possible to delay foreclosure via whatever method the company will be using.

(Joe, just a passer by that thinks more people need to enlighten themselves and ask questions rather than berate others trying to possibly make an honest $200 a month)

Hi Bob and group,

There are many ads on Craigs list to feed those that have a need.Not all the ads are very helpful.  Unfortunately, as a short sale investor, Realtor, Licensed agent, and negotiator, I face the same up hill strugggle today in this industry as has been in past markets. 

It is not usual for sellers and buyers to be " coerced " by scandle. 

We all need to stay accurate, current and knowledgeable in our field.  I encourage all agents to only allow the very skilled agents handle the load of Shorts and foreclosures today.  NO homeowner needs to be practiced on by anyone. 

Kathy

Hi Bob and group,

There are many ads on Craigs list to feed those that have a need.Not all the ads are very helpful.  Unfortunately, as a short sale investor, Realtor, Licensed agent, and negotiator, I face the same up hill strugggle today in this industry as has been in past markets. 

It is not usual for sellers and buyers to be " coerced " by scandle. 

We all need to stay accurate, current and knowledgeable in our field.  I encourage all agents to only allow the very skilled agents handle the load of Shorts and foreclosures today.  NO homeowner needs to be practiced on by anyone. 

Kathy

Foreclosure/Short Sale scams...Back in August of 2009 this was a hot topic. I had written a response (#137) to the people that took a position that these efforts to stall a foreclosure were "bottom feeders" and comments about the worst of the worst types confusing people out there that truly needed help. 

I would like to get your take on this subject now. With the troubling bank fraud issues we are literally surrounded by with the scams that have been perpetrated upon the home owners and borrowers we are in deep trouble. 

I had written...

I appreciate the open mindedness of some of the comments. Most of the knee jerk reactions to this Craig's List ad only make me believe that most are putting a comment in to get their 25 points.

How is it that so many of you assume the ad is a scam? Perhaps the foreclosure market and people finding help are way ahead of you. Not everything is a scam because it has a fee attached.

The fact is that there are many ways to stop a foreclosure or slow it down. Do some research on "produce the note" on you tube and look for the CNN spot of the Congresswoman in Ohio encouraging her constituents to get sufficient help during the default/foreclosure process and make the banks produce the note.

I know for myself what I have had to do to stop the bank from just "taking" my home...ignoring short sale offers, stringing out my effort for a loan modification and denying me due process, not having the original note and other technical violations on my loan.

Learn more about this and you will be in a position to help people find some recourse in dealing with this financial blood bath and land grab by the banks.

Don McCoy

Exit Realty Group

Southern Oregon

Foreclosure/Short Sale scams...Back in August of 2009 this was a hot topic. I had written a response (#137) to the people that took a position that these efforts to stall a foreclosure were "bottom feeders" and comments about the worst of the worst types confusing people out there that truly needed help. 

I would like to get your take on this subject now. With the troubling bank fraud issues we are literally surrounded by with the scams that have been perpetrated upon the home owners and borrowers we are in deep trouble. 

I had written...

I appreciate the open mindedness of some of the comments. Most of the knee jerk reactions to this Craig's List ad only make me believe that most are putting a comment in to get their 25 points.

How is it that so many of you assume the ad is a scam? Perhaps the foreclosure market and people finding help are way ahead of you. Not everything is a scam because it has a fee attached.

The fact is that there are many ways to stop a foreclosure or slow it down. Do some research on "produce the note" on you tube and look for the CNN spot of the Congresswoman in Ohio encouraging her constituents to get sufficient help during the default/foreclosure process and make the banks produce the note.

I know for myself what I have had to do to stop the bank from just "taking" my home...ignoring short sale offers, stringing out my effort for a loan modification and denying me due process, not having the original note and other technical violations on my loan.

Learn more about this and you will be in a position to help people find some recourse in dealing with this financial blood bath and land grab by the banks.

Don McCoy

Exit Realty Group

Southern Oregon