FREE PLR ARTICLE

'Stop Foreclosure' Scams On The Rise

The increasing number of 'Stop Foreclosure Scams' that are literally stealing the homes right out from underneath thousands of unwary homeowners are alarming officials all across the country. Foreclosure rates are soaring and scam artists who promise phony 'foreclosure rescue' services are having a field day stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from those who can least afford to lose it.

According to RealtyTrac one percent of all US households were in 'some stage of foreclosure' in 2007. A staggering 2.2 million Americans filed for foreclosure the same year. The shaky economic situation has resulted in a lot of cash-poor but house-rich owners who are desperate to hang on to the last real asset they have left. Many of them are frightened and overwhelmed making them easy targets for an emerging breed of scam artists out to con them out of their homes under the guise of helping them.

Being both extremely lucrative and having a very low-risk factor the foreclosure rescue scam business has ballooned frighteningly in recent times. Foreclosure figures are expected to increase sharply giving scam artists a steadily increasing pool of potential victims.

Foreclosure rescue scams and mortgage fraud were identified as one of the top five 'fastest-growing crimes' and 'worst complaints' to plague the country, according to a report released on July 30, 2008 by the Consumer Federation of America. (http://www.consumerfed.org/pdfs/07_complaint_report.pdf) The 'worst complaints' category is based on the number of people affected.

The FBI is also struggling to cope with the rise in mortgage fraud. They received 46,717 Suspicious Activity Reports related to mortgage fraud in 2007 and while only seven percent of these reports specified the amount of money lost, the total dollar loss from just this seven percent was $813 million. Their caseload on mortgage fraud has tripled in recent times and the agency expects foreclosure rescue scams to increase in number for at least the next two years.

The FBI's chief of financial crimes, Sharon Ormsby, believes that the problem of foreclosure rescue scams will only worsen. She commented on the issue in a recent news report on USAToday and said, "The scope is probably going to be potentially as large as the mortgage fraud problem itself."
(http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-08-04-foreclosure-scams_N.htm)

The problem has become so critical that 14 states have passed new legislation this year in an effort to protect homeowners from falling prey to 'stop foreclosure' scammers. Homeowners in financial distress, though, fall victim all too easily. Scam artists use a variety of techniques to find their victims--sending them mail, leaving flyers on their doorstep, bombarding them with phone calls every day and even sending pleasant looking company representatives to their door.

It's simple to lure distressed homeowners willing to do anything to save their home with advertisements like

'Stop Foreclosure Today'
'We Can Save Your Home--Free Consultation'
'Our Experts Will Stop Your Foreclosure This Week'
'You'll Lose Your Home If You Don't Call Us'.

It's difficult for any homeowner to verify the authenticity of the person or company since these many of these advertisements typically carry only a phone number. Most of these outfits are fly-by-night operations that milk the homeowner out of cash, their home's equity, their home or all three. Considering the huge amounts of money involved in home equity, it only takes about ten such scams for a con artist to become a millionaire.

If you are a homeowner facing the threat of a potential foreclosure and want to find a way to genuinely save your home without being ripped off, learn all you can about foreclosure rescue scams. The only way to avoid being conned is to know what to look out for. You can avoid the humiliation of being scammed and losing your money by taking a few precautionary steps.