This story really gets back to the aspect of trust. We all want to trust but trusting along with gullibility leads to tragedies like this. It really makes my blood boil.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...pisrc=nl_buzz&wpmm=1

Scammers are scum bags... but how dumb do you have to be to
A: send money to some random pop-up online ad

B: I'm sure you got notices via email or standard mail from your mortgage people saying "your payment is late" every month. I don't know I've never missed my mortgage payment, but I have forgotten to pay my car insurance by the due date and they send you a notice a week or 2 later saying your in your grace period and if you don't pay by "x date" they will cancel your policy.

I agree scammers deserve to be drawn and quartered, but unfortunately we live in a world of pieces of shit. Many people would rather spend thousands or hours designing their next scheme than just going to a job and getting a paycheck. I donate any chance I get to reputable charities and good causes, but it drives me crazy when I see people standing on every corner in the city begging for money and people stopping and giving it to them. But why get a job when you probably make more tax free money on the corner than you would at a job. If idiots don't use their head then they WILL get taken advantage of

Can't read the article due to a paywall.

More info would have been helpful.

quote:

Originally posted by SpinZone:
Can't read the article due to a paywall.

More info would have been helpful.

Scammer offers reduced mortgage payments. Victims send mortgage payments to scammer's official-looking business. Real bank that holds mortgage does not get paid and forecloses. Victim loses home.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by SpinZone:
Can't read the article due to a paywall.

More info would have been helpful.

Scammer offers reduced mortgage payments. Victims send mortgage payments to scammer's official-looking business. Real bank that holds mortgage does not get paid and forecloses. Victim loses home.

Idiots and their money are easily parted.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by SpinZone:
Can't read the article due to a paywall.

More info would have been helpful.

Scammer offers reduced mortgage payments. Victims send mortgage payments to scammer's official-looking business. Real bank that holds mortgage does not get paid and forecloses. Victim loses home.

Thanks V-Tail.
These scams all seem to prey on the "I want something for nothing" motivator or the "I trust everyone" type. When something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

I worry about my mother as she ages because people target the elderly. Fortunately, at 81, she has not really lost a step and is not likely to fall for these. The last attempt ended with her telling the nice lady trying to schedule emergency furnace service (for a house with electric baseboard heat and no furnace) that if anyone showed up at her house they would be shot.

I obviously love great journalism but am not subscribed to the Washington Post. I cannot read the article.

It seems like a lot of people jumped on the mortgage modification programs, even though their situation was unchanged from when the mortgage was originated. This woman fell for a fake one.

If this woman owned this house for thirty years, how was she so upside-down that she was looking for a mortgage payment reduction? Unless she lost her job (68, probably retired), the 2008 housing crash shouldn't have affected her ability to pay her mortgage. She was just looking to renegotiate her terms to lower her payment. In a way, she isn't a 100% victim here, but was trying to take advantage of the system herself.

If people would honor their word and stick to their agreements, some of these scams could be avoided.

‘Honey, you’ve been scammed,’ she was told. She lost her home of 30 years.

Barbara Barkley is 4 foot 10. So she designed her home in Chesapeake, Va., just for herself, with all the counters and handles lowered.

People told her the changes would make the house harder to sell, but she didn’t care.

“I planned to live there until I died,” the 68-year-old said.

Instead, she is renting a place from a relative in North Carolina. She lost her house and her savings to a group of California scam artists who stole $11 million from thousands of struggling homeowners looking for help with their mortgages.

The ringleader, Sammy Araya, 42, was sentenced in federal court in Alexandria this month to 20 years in prison. Eleven others got sentences ranging from five to 18 years.

While the court case is all but over, Barkley and other victims continue to deal with the fallout of a crime that destroyed them financially and often emotionally.

“I literally lost everything because of these people, and it’s breaking my heart,” said Barkley, who had worked in advertising. “I paid for it all myself, didn’t have a man to pay for it for me, and then some stranger gets to destroy it.”

The scam began in 2011 when Araya’s group started sending out mailers and put up Internet ads promising mortgage modifications under an Obama administration program meant to stem fallout from the housing crisis.

The program was real, but the offers were not. Homeowners were directed to send a cash “reinstatement” fee and then monthly “trial payments” for their new monthly mortgage. The money, they were told, would go to the lender.

Instead, the conspirators pocketed the funds and ignored increasingly desperate calls from their customers. Barkley found out the truth when a man on a motorcycle came to paste a notice from her mortgage lender on the door warning of foreclosure. She called the company to say she had been sending her checks as required.

“I sent them the proof, and they said, ‘That’s not us,’ ” she recalled. “I called the [Federal Trade Commission] and they said, ‘Honey, you’ve been scammed.’ ”

Government representatives told her there was nothing they could do, and her lender wouldn’t work with her. She lost her custom-fit home of 30 years.

“He was targeting people who were first off in­cred­ibly vulnerable, and second, in­cred­ibly trusting,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Faulconer said at sentencing. The number of victims, he said, “wouldn’t fit in this courtroom or probably all of the courtrooms in this building. . . . It’s staggering.”

The scam ensnared people across the country, although one co-conspirator said in an interview with investigators that Araya avoided California out of fear of then-Attorney General Kamala D. Harris, who is now a U.S. senator. At least one couple got divorced from the stress of losing their home. One victim briefly was made homeless and had to put her daughter in a pediatric psychiatric unit to deal with the trauma.

Archie Davis got pulled in as he was looking to reduce the payments on a home in Woodbridge, Va., he had been given by his ex-wife. She had been behind on the mortgage, and the basement had flooded. Davis, 64, had invested heavily in repairs. He too sent a “reinstatement fee” to the scammers and several monthly payments. They told him that he should file for bankruptcy and that the company would represent him in court. He paid to file the papers in Alexandria; they never showed.

The house is now gone, along with tools that were trapped inside when the bank seized it.

“I could’ve used that money,” he said. He and his ex-wife take care of a 28-year-old daughter with brain cancer.

If he ever gets paid back, Davis predicted, “I’ll probably be senile. I’ll think I won the lottery.”

Araya, meanwhile, lived the high life, according to testimony, frequenting strip clubs and throwing wild parties at a leased mansion in Orange County, Calif. YouTube videos from his attempt to launch an online reality TV show, “MakeItRain TV,” feature Araya — nicknamed “Samaraii” in them — showing off stacks of cash in the home’s refrigerator, luxury cars in the garage and an extensive sneaker collection in the master bedroom.

The show’s premise involved throwing wads of cash into crowds. In one episode, he performs a parody of singer Rebecca Black’s single “Friday” called “Fly Day.”

Araya pitted teams of sellers against one another, offering Los Angeles Lakers tickets and fancy dinners for the most successful con artists. He demanded they all use aliases, and he also deployed several names and fake accents.

When federal investigators started closing in, he repeatedly changed offices and business names, destroying computers along the way. One co-conspirator testified that Araya once used a federal complaint to roll a joint.

The scheme wound down in summer 2014 after search warrants were executed on connected businesses and homes. Araya allegedly went on to start another scam, fleecing several Texas business executives out of hundreds of thousands of dollars with a fake oil investment opportunity, according to court filings.

Nine co-conspirators pleaded guilty in the mortgage scam case. Araya and two others were convicted at trial, while maintaining they were duped and wrongly blamed by the true perpetrators.

Prosecutors had wanted Araya in prison for life, warning that even as he faced trial he was working on his next scam. On the day his trial was supposed to start in February, he set up a GoFundMe page asking for donations to start a church. In his new YouTube videos promoting the church, he appeared clean-cut and serious, holding his young daughter. The revival, he said, would start the day after the trial ended.

The church slogan: “Give ’til it hurts.”

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Araya, meanwhile, lived the high life, according to testimony, frequenting strip clubs and throwing wild parties ...

I don't suppose there is any money left for restitution. (rhetorical)

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One co-conspirator testified that Araya once used a federal complaint to roll a joint.

Now you have to admire that, just a litttle bit.

Sometimes justice happens by accident. I once had a big time con artist convicted of mail fraud in a prison camp in Texas. Turns out he had scammed a fellow convict's mother out of about a hundred thousand. Convicts have few values-but motherhood happens to be one (for most.) Nasty cleanup on that one, biohazards and all.