The Story Of A Foreclosure Rescue Conman

March 26th, 2008

This is the stuff that novels are made of – when pens will flow writing on the great foreclosure crisis raging across US today affecting the entire globe.

The hero is one Charles Head. The FBI are hunting for him. He had his headquarters in South California and robbed millions of dollars from house owners facing foreclosures. He left them high and dry without their property taking advantage of piles of paper work. Head ran many companies. All of these companies targeted gullible victims over the Internet. Their secondary line of approach was sending out feelers to the victims through fax, phone and mail. In this way he had duped hundreds – 15 of whom were from Washington.

He picked his prey from those who were behind in their house mortgage payments. The distress had traumatized them and these people were ready to clutch at any straw to survive. Head had a different line of approach for each of his targets. The first general assurance was that the debt would be cleared if the borrower transferred the title of the property to a third party who would hold it for a certain time – one to three years. At the end of this period the person would be able to buy back the house. The temptation for the borrower was that during this period he would be able to continue staying in the unit as a tenant by paying rent. There was a tacit understanding that the buy back price of the loan would be slightly higher than the loan amount.

The third party or the investor would pay off the mortgage and become the owner of the property until it was time for the ex-owner cum borrower cum tenant was ready to buy back the estate. It was understood that one of the many companies of Head would be collecting the rent and paying off the mortgage. In nine cases out of ten the victims were raw in the matter of such transactions and could not understand what was written between the lines in the agreement transferring the title.

Head using his contacts gets an appraiser to over value the house so as to get a handsome loan. When the loan comes through the mortgage is cleared and the excess amount is transferred to the account of Head. In reality what happens is that the mortgage money is not paid and the company then starts foreclosure proceedings against the investor. The hapless victim loses not only the house but also credit ratings. The future looks bleak and uncertain.

Foreclosure scams are on the rise and the above incident is just one of the many that are happening everywhere. These are the gangs of vultures preying on the foreclosure victims who are already half-dead from the financial crisis. Questions are being asked as to why such things have been allowed to go on for so long without checks. However – better late than never, action is being taken to put an end to this practice.