Mortgage Fraud – Google and other search engines profiting from Mortgage Fraud ads

Google has a policy of prohibiting deceptive advertising, such as those placed by mortgage fraudsters, however one group says the giant search engine company doesn’t typically ban misleading ads from a questionable advertiser until after a company is sued by federal regulators. The nonprofit is calling for the company whose name has become a verb to be more proactive.

Consumer Watchdog has complained in a Feb. 8 letter to the Federal Trade Commission that Google and other search engines have not only been profiting by accepting deceptive advertising from fraudulent operators, but have also essentially been an accomplice in crime and should be made to stop “its harmful behavior.”

The issue at hand is that outfits that falsely promise unwary consumers that they can solve their mortgage and credit problems have cost individual consumers thousands of dollars, and sometimes even their homes, while Google allegedly has been raking in the bucks from these deceptive advertisers that pay thousands of dollars for prime advertising space on Google searches.

CW is attacking Google because it is a market leader and thus, its “laxity in preventing fraudulent advertising has created an environment in which other search engine companies can feel safe in adopting the same questionable practices,” the Washington D.C.-based consumer advocacy group states in a 37-page PDF report it released yesterday.

MORE >>>> http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2011/02/11/google-blamed-for-mortgage-fraud/

Mortgage Fraud – Real Estate Renting Scams

Real estate scams are prevalent today and are showing no signs of going away. A common form of these scams involves a con artist advertising a house as a rental when it is not. In fact, it’s a house that is actually for sale and being advertised on a legitimate real estate company’s website.

The con artist takes the picture from the website and puts it on his fraudulent website. He advertises on craigslist that the house is for rent, asking for first and last month’s rent. A web address is given to view the house. The prospective tenant checks out the house online and sends the deposit. Many times con artists ask their victims to wire the money.

Once the money is gone there is no getting it back. The con artist is probably in Canada and the website is gone. He’s moved on to his next victim.

Do your homework before sending any money to anyone you don’t know.

#1 check with your state assessor’s office to determine who owns the property.

#2 google the address and see if the property shows up on any real estate website for rent or for sale. If the property that was advertised for rent on craigslist shows up for sale on a real estate website, there is a serious problem. Contact the real estate company and apprise them of the situation.

#3 if possible, contact the neighbors of the property you are planning on renting. Ask them about the owner and status of the property. Is it for sale? Or rent? Or in foreclosure?

#4 Fourth, don’t wire money. Any time you are asked to wire money you should consider that a deal breaker.

#5 check with the bank that holds the mortgage to make sure it is not in foreclosure.

Mortgage Fraud – Better Choice Investments : Phoenix Police Lts

Phoenix police Lts. Mark Tallman and Lee Brent Shaw have been placed on administrative leave after settling a mortgage fraud lawsuit with the attorney general.

In the judgment, they agree to pay $458,000, much of which will go to 148 victims, who claim Tallman and Shaw defrauded them out of their homes and money.

For months, many of those victims came to CBS 5 News, claiming Tallman and Shaw had scammed them.

They were people already facing foreclosure when they were approached to hand over the deed to their homes to Better Choice Investments, a company owned by the officers.

Homeowners were told that as long as they kept paying the mortgage to Better Choice Investments, Tallman and Shaw would allow them to buy their homes back within a year.

But according to the attorney general, Shaw and Tallman would secretly refinance the homes, split the profits, and the original owners would never know from whom to get their homes back.

MORE >>>> http://www.kpho.com/news/26072483/detail.html

Mortgage Fraud Scheme – Clean Slate Financial Services

Shanita Lacy, age 34, of Chesapeake, Virginia, pleaded guilty today in Norfolk federal court to conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud in connection with a scheme to fraudulently obtain home mortgages.

According to court documents, Lacy admitted that, during 2007 and 2008, she conspired with others to fraudulently obtain eight mortgage loans worth $1,549,170. Through her Virginia Beach business known as Clean Slate Financial Services, Lacy targeted homeowners in financial distress with false promises of credit repair and action to enable them to save their homes from foreclosure. Lacy then oversaw the sale of the homes at inflated prices to straw buyers, who Lacy helped to obtain mortgage loans based upon falsified income and down payment data. At or soon after the closings, Lacy liquidated and made off with thehomeowners’ equity. Soon thereafter, the straw buyers defaulted on the mortgage loans and the homes were foreclosed upon.

Mortgage Fraud – Fraud complaint filed against JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Irving H. Picard, the Trustee for the liquidation for Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (“BLMIS”) today announced the filing of a complaint in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York against JPMorgan Chase & Co., JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and J.P. Morgan Securities Ltd. (collectively “JPMC”).

The complaint seeks to recover nearly $1 billion in fees and profits and an additional $5.4 billion in damages for JPMC’s decades-long role as BLMIS’s primary banker, aiding and abetting Madoff’s fraud. All recovered monies will be placed into the Customer Fund and distributed, pro rata, to Madoff customers with valid claims, the rightful owners of those monies.

The complaint states JPMC had clear, documented suspicions about the legitimacy of BLMIS’s operations. Instead of acting on that information, it simply continued to collect fees and profit from the fraud.

MORE >>>> http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/trustee-for-liquidation-of-bernard-l-madoff-investment-securities-charges-jpmorgan-chase-madoffs-primary-banker-with-enabling-massive-fraud-111203234.html

Mortgage Fraud – ‘Richmond Mortgage’ of Indiana

Kathy Puckett was a co-owner of Richmond Mortgage and served as its sole mortgage originator. Puckett’s job was to prepare loan documents including loan applications and other documents supporting buyers’ income and ability to pay. Between March 2006 and February 2008, Puckett submitted false information to the lenders including inflated bank account balances, false verifications of employment, false verifications of rent, misrepresenting one borrower’s name to reflect a better credit score, and false gift letters.

Federal charges against a Framingham real estate lawyer Michael R. Anderson this week bring the number of people charged in an expanding mortgage fraud case to 4 that led to scores of abandoned and foreclosed properties in Dorchester and Roxbury.

Anderson, 41, was charged Wednesday in US District Court with 27 counts of wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering in the case involving Michael David Scott, a Mansfield developer who was indicted separately in August for allegedly working with associates to recruit “straw buyers’’ to purchase condominiums with fraudulently obtained documents.

Virginia real estate recruiter Jerrold Fowler and a former Bank of America Corp. manager, Arthur Samuels, also were charged in separate complaints in US District Court for their roles in what prosecutors say was a fraud scheme that drew buyers to purchase properties they weren’t planning to live in or even make mortgage payments to lenders.

MORE >>>> http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/09/10/real_estate_lawyer_charged_in_mortgage_fraud/

5 people pleaded guilt in federal court Thursday for their part in a homebuilder mortgage fraud scheme that involved false loan applications, kickbacks and duping investors.

Twin brothers Anthony B. Grant and Antonio B. Grant, 43, both of Simpsonville, and their business partner Michael D. Holmes, 37, of Lawrenceville, Ga., pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Tower Homes, Inc., a South Carolina corporation, and its President Nathan Seppala, 50, and Vice President Sandra Kinnunnen, 59, both of Greer, all pleaded guilty as well.

United States District Judge Henry F. Floyd accepted the pleas and will impose sentence after he has reviewed pre-sentence reports from the U.S. Probation Office.

According to prosecutors, the Grant brothers with Holmes operated South East Real Estate Solutions (SERES), which sought people interested in real estate investment and would locate property in upstate South Carolina for these investors to purchase.

Many of the novice investors were recruited from the congregation of Redemption World Outreach Church of Greenville, South Carolina, after the Grant brothers and Holmes made presentations to members of the congregation on investment opportunities. The men promised each investor that once an investment property was purchased, SERES would make all mortgage payments, would find individuals to rent the property, would manage the property, and that SERES would try to “flip” the property to earn a profit for themselves and the investor.

Investors were asked to provide personal financial information to SERES so that financing could be sought by the Grant brothers and Holmes on their behalf for the real estate purchases. However, the Grant brothers and Holmes falsified the investors’ financial information, preparing loan applications stating that the investors had substantial assets and income to qualify for higher mortgage loans, when in fact many did not.

The men also provided investors with money required by lenders to be paid at closing by the investors. To deceive the lenders on the source of these funds, the men typically gave each investor a check prior to closing, instructing the investor to present it at closing as if it were from the investor’s personal account.

Based on the false applications and the deceptive closing funds, mortgage lenders approved 33 loans in amounts far in excess of what would have been loaned had accurate information been presented.

Many of these loans are now delinquent and many of the homes are in foreclosure, said prosecutors.

Many of the properties that SERES arranged for its investors to purchase were small site-built homes constructed and sold by Tower Homes in the upstate. The Grant brothers and Holmes entered into side contracts with Tower Homes to locate buyers, then arranged for a recruited investor to purchase one of the Tower Homes’ properties at a price far in excess of that typically charged by Tower Homes.

For arranging for the investor to purchase the Tower Homes property, Seppala and Kinnunnen authorized kickback payments to the Grant brothers and Holmes which were not disclosed to the lenders.

Representatives of Tower Homes provided sworn affidavits to the lenders that there were no oral or written contracts relating to or affecting the property purchased by the investor, when in fact, the representatives knew about the side contracts and the kickbacks authorized by Seppala and Kinnunnen.

Secret Service agents began investigating the case after numerous victim investors contacted the U.S. Attorney’s Office to report the fraud in February 2009.

The maximum penalty the individual defendants can receive is a fine of $1,000,000 and imprisonment for 30 years. The corporate defendant Tower Homes faces a maximum possible fine of $1,000,000.

source: http://www.live5news.com/Global/story.asp?S=12165851

A federal grand jury has indicted Rolando Alonzo Cousins, a/k/a “Junior,” age 31, of Bowie, Maryland, for conspiracy to commit mail fraud, and money laundering, in connection with a massive mortgage fraud scheme which promised to help homeowners facing foreclosure keep their homes and repair their damaged credit, but left them homeless and with no equity. The indictment was returned on Mar. 8, 2010. Cousins was arrested today and is scheduled to have an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt today at 3:30 p.m.

According to the 11-count indictment, Cousins was a Senior Loan Officer with the “Metropolitan Money Store” ( MMS ), located in Lanham, Maryland, which offered foreclosure consultation and credit services to financially distressed homeowners. Cousins also owned and operated Prosper Investments LLC. In 2005, Joy Jackson and Jennifer McCall incorporated Metropolitan Money Store. Also at that time, Jackson, Jennifer McCall, Jackson’s husband, Kurt Forham, McCall’s husband, Clifford McCall, and others incorporated Fordham & Fordham Investment Group, Ltd. ( F&F ) and Burroughs & Smythe Financial Services, Inc. ( B&S ), based in Lanham and Greenbelt, Maryland, to assist Metropolitan Money Store in its foreclosure consulting and credit servicing business.

The indictment alleges that from September 2004 through June, 2007, Cousins, Jackson, McCall, and others, operating through several companies, including the Metropolitan Money Store, fraudulently promised to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, keep their homes, and repair their damaged credit by directing the homeowners to allow title to their homes to be put in the names of third party purchasers ( the straw buyers ) for a 1-year period, during which time the defendants would help the homeowners obtain more favorable mortgages, improve their credit rating and eventually return title to their homes to them. Cousins, Jackson, McCall, and others told the homeowners that the equity withdrawn from the properties would be used to pay the mortgage and expenses on their homes and to repair their credit.

In fact, the indictment alleges that Cousins, Jackson, McCall, and others paid approximately $10,000 to each of the straw buyers to participate in the scheme; fraudulently bolstered the credit of the straw buyers so they could qualify for more favorable mortgages; obtained fraudulently inflated loans on the properties in the straw buyers names; served as straw buyers themselves; stripped away the bulk of the homeowners equity proceeds and converted that money to their own personal use; and stopped making the mortgage payments on the homes, resulting in the homes being foreclosed upon.

The indictment also seeks the forfeiture of $1.5 million, alleged to be Cousins’ proceeds from the scheme.

U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein expressed special appreciation to the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation’s Division of Financial Regulation Investigative Unit for their assistance in the investigation.

Cousins faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine for the conspiracy and each of the two mail fraud counts; and 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of eight counts of money laundering.

Joy Jackson and Jennifer McCall pleaded guilty to their role in the scheme and were sentenced to 151 months in prison and 135 months in prison, respectively. Nine other co-conspirators also pleaded guilty and were sentenced.

An indictment is not a finding of guilt. An individual charged by indictment is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty at some later criminal proceedings.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein thanked Assistant United States Attorneys James A. Crowell IV and Christen Sproule, who are prosecuting the case.

source: http://baltimore.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/ba030910.htm

” The Colorado Division of Real Estate ” is investigating allegations that a state senator and the mortgage company where he works engaged in false advertising.

Division Director Erin Toll says state investigators believe Republican Senator Ted Harvey and the company where he works as a mortgage broker, ” American Home Funding “, misled customers with an advertising flyer that looks like a government tax document.

The flyer features the Statue of Liberty and warns that ” a call to action is required. ” It says in small print on the side that it’s not a government document.

Harvey said the notices are no different than those from other financial institutions and denies breaking the law.

source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/03/ted-harvey-investigated-f_n_484970.html