Millions at risk of foreclosure fraud

[WriteDown]

Source: MSNBC

Angela Carter's family has lived for 46 years in the same small two-story home in Chicago, perhaps a 15-minute ride from Barack Obama's adopted Hyde Park neighborhood. But today a piece of paper says someone else owns the property, and a judge will soon decide if Carter and her mom get to stay in her home.

The reason Carter, 55, is facing eviction, she says, is that she fell for a high-stakes scam that’s sweeping the nation, preying on the 1 in 11 consumers who are either behind on their mortgage payments or already in foreclosure.

Interviews with legal aid offices and law enforcement officials around the nation indicate the problem of so-called “foreclosure rescue scams” has spread like wildfire, neatly paralleling the downturn in the mortgage market.

The problem is so bad that in Portland, Ore., local police now automatically send a letter to homeowners who enter foreclosure warning them that they will be inundated with shady offers of help. In one case in Maryland, a single firm is accused of bilking hundreds of residents out of their homes and stealing $60 million in equity. Similar large-scale scams are happening elsewhere; in fact, foreclosure fraud is so common that it's exacerbating the nationwide housing slump, adding to the ranks of distressed homes that pull down the housing market in general, according to some experts....

Read more: http://redtape.msnbc.com/2008/09/post.html

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I am very curious how you can have NO idea what your house is worth.