April 6—A year-long undercover investigation by four fair housing organizations into 80 mortgage loan modification companies has uncovered common tactics used by scammers to entice home owners to use their services.

The National Fair Housing Alliance, the Connecticut Fair Housing Center, Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia, Inc., and the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center documented the ways mortgage scammers take money from vulnerable home owners and deliver few services in exchange:

  • 55% required an upfront fee to start work or required a low initial fee to conduct minimal work on behalf of distressed home owners, such as reviewing loan documents;
  • 43% guaranteed or promised they could secure a loan modification even before learning about the home owners’ financial limitations;
  • 24% advised or encouraged home owners to stop making their mortgage payments or to stop contacting their lenders;
  • 16% guaranteed a new, much lower interest rate ranging between 2% and 6% on modified loans;
  • 12% discouraged home owners from seeking free help from government-approved housing counseling agencies;
  • 8% encouraged home owners to provide fraudulent information to their lenders.

“This is shameful abuse by loan-modification scammers to take advantage of desperate home owners,” said Shanna L. Smith, NFHA president and CEO. “We and our partner organizations will work to see to it that these companies are prosecuted by the Federal Trade Commission and other federal and state enforcement agencies.”

Investigators working on behalf of the fair housing organizations captured scammers saying things like:

  • “I’d be breaking the law if I told you to stop paying your mortgage, but friend-to-friend, you won’t get a loan modification until you are behind on your mortgage.”
  • “If you don’t qualify, we modify expenses for you. They [the lenders] don’t check it. No one knows what you spend on groceries. We make you qualify by playing with the numbers.”

The fair housing organizations want the Federal Trade Commission to prohibit attorneys from charging upfront fees to do loan modification work. They also want the federal government to do more home owner education and the mortgage lending industry to step up its efforts to help troubled home owners.

Source: National Fair Housing Alliance