Flipping Frenzy.com is your source for news, information, and commentary on Real Estate and Mortgage Fraud. 
If you believe you have been a victim of real estate or mortgage fraud, start here! Select your state from the pulldown menu below:
Mortgage fraud reports up 7.5 percent, US agency says
Suspicious activity reports filed in the third quarter of 2009 showed a 7.5 percent increase in possible mortgage loan fraud over a year earlier, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) reported on Thursday.
Forty-two percent of the reported activity took place in California and Florida, while the greater Miami, Los Angeles and New York areas topped the list of metropolitan locations.
The Bank Secrecy Act requires financial institutions to file suspicious activity reports, or SARs, with FinCEN when they identify or suspect fraudulent activity.
A unit of the U.S. Treasury Department that provides and analyzes financial intelligence, administers the Bank Secrecy.
The report covered the period from July 1 to Sept. 30, 2009. FinCEN said that 15,697 mortgage loan fraud SARs had been submitted during the quarter, up 7.5 percent over the third quarter of 2008.
But the agency cautioned that the increase did not necessarily reflect an uptick in fraud. It said three-quarters of the suspicious activity reports, which were filed by depository institutions, included activities that were more than a year old, and half included activities that were more than two years old.
But FinCEN said it had received hundreds of reports describing possible loan modification fraud or foreclosure rescue scams since it asked financial institutions in April to look for “red flags” indicating such activities.
The agency said two schemes were most commonly reported in the SARs:
One involved homeowners who were duped into signing quit-claim deeds to their properties. The homes were then sold to straw borrowers and the homeowners received eviction notices.
The other involved scammers who falsely claimed affiliations with lenders to convince distressed homeowners to pay large advance fees for modification services. The scammers then took no action on the homeowners’ behalf.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said last month the FBI was investigating more than 2,800 mortgage fraud cases — up nearly 400 percent from five years ago.
In November, President Barack Obama set up an interagency task force to focus on fraud in mortgages, securities, economic stimulus programs and government bailouts.
A Ralph Roberts Site, Copyright 2005-2008 |