The expansion in the real estate market has allowed many Americans to become “equity rich.” They may not have much money on hand, but they may have equity in their homes worth several hundred thousand dollars or more. Unfortunately, this increasing wealth gave birth at home as equity in cases of theft, as more and more thieves increasingly finding creative ways to help owners of their equity, their homes, or both. A clever scam involves new companies that promise to completely “eliminate” an owner of the mortgage. For a fee of a few thousand dollars, these companies claim that the owner can have a free and clear title to their home without repaying the remaining debt. How does this scam?
This scam is a bit more complicated than other scams that often use simple forgery of identity theft. In this “mortgage elimination” swindle, the owner places his home in a climate of trust with the mortgage elimination of society as a trustee. The trustee files a long and tedious, frivolous, a letter of complaint with the mortgage company, giving them a mere 10 days to respond. If the mortgage company does not respond within ten days, and often they...