Mortgage Scam Update

A month ago, we wrote about the rise of mortgage scam artists and their prevalence in the market. Today, government officials announced a crackdown on these types of scams. Some states have made changes to laws in order to make punishments more severe, but most states are still prosecuting these criminals as civil cases, not criminal.

The FTC sent warning letters to 71 companies that were found to be running suspicious advertisements. Be wary of any foreclosure assistance company that sounds too good to be true, offering guarantees of success rates and promises to stop foreclosure in exchange for upfront money. The announcement of this crackdown will help with awareness of these types of companies, but until this type of scam is prosecutable in criminal court, there will be always subset of the unscrupulous looking to take advantage of those in need.

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