Protect Your Family from Foreclosure Scams

Smart Money recently published an article about new consumer scams for the New Year. Two of the scams mentioned are about foreclosure rescue companies and foreclosure rental scams. I have posted warnings and information about avoiding these snakes who target people who are facing foreclosure.

Foreclosure Rescue scams offer to deal with your lender for you and charge a substantial up front fee for no service. This is generally something you can do for yourself. There is absolutely no reason to pay someone to do this task for you. If you need help there are companies you can contact who can assist you for free.

Foreclosure rental scams seem a little more above board, but are actually more costly to the homeowner facing foreclosure. They offer to catch you up on your mortgage payments in exchange for you signing your deed over to them. You can rent back your home from them until you get caught up, then they will sign the deed back over to you.

What they really do is take whatever equity you have, take your rent payments from you and never send a dime to the bank. Eventually, the bank will foreclose. In the meantime, you have lost all equity and given your money to a scam artist.

Read the entire article at Smart Money here.