Page 24 - Kimberly Hunt and daughter

Beware!!!

Save your home scams!!!

Many San Diegans are currently in fear of losing their
homes and in their desperation are searching for ways
to get help and prevent going through foreclosure.
Unfortunately, we have come across an entire army of
scam artists who are targeting these desperate individu-
als in our community.

The latest band of predators are called Loan Modifica-
tion companies and they are springing up everywhere.
There are some reputable ones whose main purpose is
to renegotiate your loan and help you from losing your
home, but there are also many more bogus companies
who are preying upon the fears of our neighbors. We
have interviewed expert loan officers, attorney’s, Real-
tors and Financial Advisors who warn us to be extremely
cautious when signing on with one of these firms.

24 On our website we have a list of red flags and real life
horror stories for you to read carefully. We have al-
ready heard from several of our readers who have been
solicited by phone, told to fill out forms by fax, and wire
the fees of thousands of dollars for these phony services
only to find that the company was a phantom. Office
addresses given were empty offices or simply phony ad-
dresses that never existed.

Another prevalent scam is to ask for a fee of $3500 or
more, but request an upfront payment of a $1000 and
you pay the rest when they save your home. But they
keep the grand and never do anything more and you
end up losing your home. The hook is they say they
can’t survive on $1000 so they have to be successful to
get the balance of the fee. We can’t tell you how many
variations on this theme there are.

Here is how we can be proactive to help you. Before
signing any contract or paying any fees visit our website
at www.sandiegowoman.com/finances or email
finances@sandiegowoman.com for a listing of red flags
and stories to review BEFORE you hire a loan modifica-
tion firm. If what they promise seems too good to be
true it probably is!

We would also like to hear from you. Tell us your stories,
good or bad, so we can identify the good guys as well
as the bad guys. Write us at finances@sandiegowoman.
com. As Ben Franklin said “If we don’t hang together,
we will surely hang separately. "
Issue 1, 2009