3 individuals have pled guilty to loan modification fraud against hundreds of “desperate California homeowners” and were sentenced to as much as 6 years of prison. The defendants sentenced were part of a foreclosure scam engineered by the First Gov company, which was based in San Bernardino, California.
• Rosa Conrado, 51, San Bernardino, California, was sentenced to six years, four months of prison for 6 counts of grand theft.
• Alejandrina Maldonado, 33, St. Lucie, Florida, was sentenced on February 26, 2009, to a three year prison term for one count of grand theft.
• Martin Jesus Flores, 33, Baldwin Park, California, was given three years of probation today based on his limited participation in the scheme.
• David Giron, 44, ntario, and Saul Amador, 23, West Covina, both of Califonria, are scheduled for a preliminary hearing on March 19, 2009, for theft, money laundering, and conspiracy.
• Three other members of the ring — Juan Jose Perez, 48, Isuara Hernandez, 33, La Habra, and Antonia Gonzalez, 66, San Bernardino, all of California, – are believed to have fled the jurisdiction and may be out of the country.
In November 2008, Attorney General Brown announced the break up of the First Gov scam ring. First Gov, — which also operated under such misleading names such as Foreclosure Prevention Services; Resolution Department; Reinstatement Department; and Reinstatement Processing — solicited hundreds of homeowners, offering to help them stop the foreclosure of their homes.
Ring members promised victims they would renegotiate their mortgages and reduce monthly payments. They demanded an up-front fee, ranging from $1,500 to $5,000, to participate in the loan-modification program.
Victims were told to stop making mortgage payments and communicating with their lender because this would interfere with the loan modification process. After collecting their fee, ring members pocketed the money and did nothing to help victims.
“While doing nothing to help and pocketing all the money, these individuals ripped off desperate California homeowners who paid thousands of dollars to stop the foreclosure of their homes,” Attorney General Brown said.
The action is part of Attorney General Brown’s campaign to fight predatory lending and loan modification scams.
• In March 2008, the Attorney General’s office arrested members of Lifetime Financial Corporation for perpetrating a similar mortgage-modification scam that cheated hundreds of California homeowners out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
• In October 2008, the Attorney General secured $8.6 billion in loan relief for eligible homeowners in a landmark settlement with Countrywide Financial Corporation for engaging in deceptive and predatory lending practices.
The Attorney General has also issued a Consumer Alert regarding foreclosure scam rings and tax reassessment scams. Homeowners should be on high alert when approached by companies offering ways to save your home or lower your property taxes.
We were scamed by a man named Mark Zugay, who posed as a mortgage modifying company in a small town in Delavan Wi. called, “Save My Home Midwest” in which he was not licensed to do, as I found out through the Consumer Fraud office. My question is then why wasn’t he prosecuted?? This man foreclosed on several properties of his own, a real piece of work, still looking to get this guy.
Hi,
Mi name is Mauricio Yanez and six months ago I was hired by a company named Debt Solutions with the position Account Executive to work in the Loan Modification departament, the charge 3,495 to the people and I sold a few contracts to my clients by now they are not doing nothing wiht my clients loan modifications, the company change the name for any reason that I don’t know to a Southern California Legal Group, I quit last week because I don’t wanna be involved in something ilegal with them but now I want to kwno if there’s something we can do to get the money back to my clients, before they lost their homes. feel free to call me at my direct number 626.252.6535
thank you,
Mauricio Yanez
Artie: You can arrange a loan modification directly with your lender. There is no need to pay money to some for profit loan modification outfit. If you believe you are not competent enough to understand or to comply with your lender’s paperwork requests, you can go to http://www.hopenow.com to find a FREE, govt. funded, non-profit foreclosure counselor in your area that can assist you in obtaining a loan modification. DO NOT PAY $2500 to any loan modification outfit as you may need that money to start a repayment plan with your lender.
I have a question, can a licensed lender in florida do loan mods? Can they charge a small fee of $500 upfront and $2000.00 once they mod is done? I went to a company that said that under fl stat 494.1 they can charge up to $500.00 up front. Is this legal?
In Florida, as of October 1, 2008, non-attorneys cannot charge an upfront fee for loan modification services. See Section 501.1377, Florida Statutes, which you can get to by googling “online sunshine” and then just typing in “501.1377” in the search feature of the main page.
Lincoln Lending Services is not a law firm. It tries to get around the “we’re not attorneys” hurdle by placing attorneys in their advertising, but it is very clear that attorneys and non-attorneys cannot form a partnership to provide legal services. See Florida Bar Rule 4-5.4(c) by going to this link: http://www.floridabar.org/divexe/rrtfb.n...
The hundreds of people in their office every day is in large part due to their endless presence on seemingly all of the Spanish-language media in Miami. Incidentally, the fact that they are not a law firm makes them exempt from the Florida Bar’s Rules on Advertising, which among other things prohibit promises of results, testimonials, and appeals to emotion. If you recall, all of their advertising is full of promised results, testimonials and appeals to emotion. They’ve even taken to invoking God lately. See Florida Bar Rule 4-7.2(c), http://www.floridabar.org/divexe/rrtfb.n...
Confused Citizen: Here’s a quote from a recent article referenced on this site about a major mortgage fraud bust in Wisconsin:
“Valadez found the straw buyers, often using his connections in the Mexican-American community in the Delavan-Lake Geneva area,” Howard wrote to the judge.”
In discarding reality, you have chosen political correctness over being honest, fair, factual, and accurate. It’s a easy to say what everyone wants to hear, but it takes guts, honor and integrity to speak the truth when what is being said may not be all that popular.
Lincoln Lending offices are in Miami Dade County
Florida.
Has anyone ever gone to Lincoln Lending Services. They even have a TV show on sundays. They are charging a lot of money for modifications. I have yet to see an Attorney in their commercials.
Can someone go check this out.
Sorry SteveP, but you are not adding anything new, continue to preach to the choir re. mortgage fraud, and you keep posting questions re. the legal status of foreign-sounding fraudsters. That’s what makes you sound bigoted. Yes, illegal aliens would be more prone to commit another crime since they already proved they are willing to commit a federal crime (illegal entry into the US) to improve their lives. But this is not about illegal or legal aliens, it is about mortgage fraud in general. Why don’t you complain about the crappy underwriting done by all those subprime lenders? You know, the ones owned by AMERICANS and American corporations (e.g. GE)? These lenders were so willing to lend to anyone, as long as they had a warm temperature or a pulse. They were also happy as pigs in sh*t to believe that there were thousands of gardeners or wedding gown designers making $10-15K/mo a month. And now, they are … gone. Was it the illegals’ fault, or the lenders’ fault?
One last thing: Most illegals from Mexico “are just good, honest, hard working people who only want to provide a better life for their families.”
SteveP, have you noticed that most of those indicted for mortgage fraud tend to have very English-sounding last names? Did you know that these Americans tend to target immigrants? So much for your unfounded bigotry. Yes, “bigotry” since you immediately focused on Mexicans based on … not much. They could have been from El Salvador (do you know the difference?), Nicaragua, etc.
I’d rather hire an immigrant than a xenophobe like you.
I was facing problems with huge loan. After searching the web, I fund out about http://www.editmyloan.com. This site has got a lot of useful information. They also negotiated with my bank and reduced the interest rate by 2%.
All those immigrants from Mexico are just good, honest, hard working people who only want to provide a better life for their families…….NOT!
Well at least, as far as we know that is, these perps were not members of one of the Mexican drug cartels.