Mortgage Scams Lead to Debt And Harassment
The Federal Trade Commission has stepped up its investigations and prosecutions of mortgage loan relief scam artists. Because the get started of 2013, the FTC has obtained settlements from over twenty individuals and firms concerned with scamming distressed homeowners. While in the most current circumstances, two men and women and 7 providers settled FTC expenses that they victimized over a thousand people today through “mass joinder lawsuits” and “forensic loan audits.” They violated the Home loan Support Relief Providers (MARS) Rule, which was setup to curb deceptive and unfair practices associated with such providers.
The FTC contends that Sameer Lakhany, Brian Pacios, Precision Law Center, Inc., Precision Law Center LLC, Nationwide Legal Network, Inc., and Assurity Law Group, Inc. targeted consumers with a mass joinder scam. They promised property owners they could halt their foreclosures or obtain another mortgage loan relief when they joined collectively to sue the lenders. The defendants represented themselves being a law company termed Precision Law Center, charging among $6,000 and $10,000 in up-front fees. But each and every suit was dismissed quickly immediately after it was filed; the victims noticed none of your promised relief.
One of several scam artists, Lakhany, was also involved in a “forensic loan audit” scam, in addition to The Credit Store, LLC, Titanium Realty, Inc., and Fidelity Legal Companies LLC. These defendants referred to as themselves nonprofit organizations, with domain names like “FreeFedLoanMod.org,” “HouseholdRelief.org,” and “MyHomeSupport.org;” but actually they sold folks an auditing services, which supposedly observed loan provider violations in mortgage documents. The defendants charged $800 to just about $1,600 for this services, which never ever led to a single favorable loan modification for the victims.
The FTC settlements call for the defendants to surrender a lot of assets and pay out $4.75 million in restitution. All except Assurity Law Group, Inc. are banned from mortgage relief and debt relief services; Assurity is required to surrender $100,000 in money and has been ordered to cease any deceptive practices. In February, the FTC settled with yet another predatory group, composed of Ryan Zimmerman, Shopper Advocates Group Professionals, LLC, Paramount Asset Management Corporation, and Advocates for Shopper Affairs Expert, LLC. These entities also utilised the forensic loan audit scam, and charged men and women nearly $2,000 or more for your audits-they failed to produce fantastic on their false claims. Apart from receiving a $3.5 million judgment towards them, the defendants are banned from marketing and advertising relief services or merchandise, and from making any misleading claims about any other type of product or service.
In January 2013, eight other defendants settled using the FTC, for offering fake relief companies to distressed Spanish-speaking house owners in excess of the cellphone. The defendants-David F. Preiner, Daniel Hungria, Freedom Businesses Advertising, Inc., Freedom Firms Lending, Inc., Freedom Businesses, Inc., Grupo Marketing Dominicana, Freedom Information Solutions, Inc., and Haiti Management, Inc-collected over $2 million from folks above three years. They simply just did not provide the services they stated they could. Element of this settlement, during which the defendants received a $2.39 million judgment, bans them from marketing relief merchandise or companies, and from creating misleading claims about something they market.
