Long article, but I thought it a good read. These scammers were creative and bold. Be careful out there! http://biz.yahoo.com/special/housing110706_article1.html Small snippit: The Bonnie and Clyde of Mortgage Fraud A master con artist and his partner went on a six-state crime spree, ripping off homeowners, stealing identities and defrauding lenders. By Marcia Vickers Fortune senior writer In December 2004, Dr. Bruce Brown and his wife, Bridget, got a call around seven in the evening from a man who had seen the sales listing for their Columbia, S.C., house. He asked if he could come over right away. The Browns agreed. They desperately wanted to sell the property, which had been on the market for six months. Dr. Brown was starting a new job in Augusta, Ga., in weeks. Just days before, they had amended their listing to offer $201,000 in owner financing, "hoping to broaden the pool of candidates," says Bridget. They did. Within an hour, a man showed up in a fancy sports car and introduced himself as Gary Sullivan. With him was a petite blond woman he said was his realtor. Sullivan told the Browns he owned a temp staffing agency called Labor on Demand but had run up too much credit card debt and needed owner financing to buy a home. The two cased the traditional two-story house quickly and left. Within days, the Browns had a deal...
Matthew Cox. Mentally ill? What a waste of talent and intelligence. You would think with all that intelligence and cleverness he would have applied his skills and done something useful and even perhaps slightly legal. Politician maybe.
True funny story. My wife work for one of the largest homebuilders, in the mortgage division. She comes home and tells me some loser doctored his paycheck stub in adobe pdf! Maybe I should put this under housing going down. Underwriting started laughing when they saw it.
The escalation of Mortgage Fraud and the brazeness of the parties doing it is because of the Do Nothing FBI! Mortgage Fraud is already a Title 18 federal felony with up to $1m fine and 30 yrs prison per occurence. Mortgage Fraud is also Bank Fraud, Wire Fraud, Mail Fraud. Yet the FBI does not investigate, indict nor convict even when confronted with the preponderance of clear and convincing public record evidence of a continuing series of fraudulent loans from a Reno Realtor with the blessing of his Broker who braggs "everyone's doing it" and has admitted in the public records offering bribes to a loan officer to do the fraudulent loans for him and his clients - which the loan officer refused, then the Reno Fraudster Realtor and his Broker (of a well known nation wide brokerage) both threatened to the loan officer, the sales manager, the branch manager and the area manager they would get the loan officer and the lender blackballed by every Realtor in Reno, then closed the fraudulent loans with other lenders - 8 of them for more then $2m. The Reno Fraudster Realtor even wrote a threatending letter to one of the witnesees threatending to sue her if she didn't mind her own business as his production was the only thing he and his broker were concerned about. It's the Do Nothing National Association of Realtors, State Association of Realtors, local Reno association of Realtors who don't hold their fellow Realtors accountable, even when they know who the fraudster Realtors are and that honest Realtors can't compete against the Fraudster Realtors. It's the Do Nothing NV State Mortgage Division who evidently took a bribe from the Fraudster Realtor and covered his and his clients Mortgage Fraud up. Money buys a very large Conspiracy of Silence. It's the Do Nothing NV State Real Estate Division and NV State Attorney General who also cover up the Mortgage Fraud even when presented with a preponderance of clear and convincing public record evidence by several complaintants against this Reno Fraudster Realtor. It's the Do Nothing Lenders who want that short-term quarterly profit to show Wall Street they made off the origination of the fraudulent loans who don't call the loans due when confronted with the evidence the loans are fraudulent. It's the No Nothing Nationally Known Brokerage who is ethically challenged when they allow their agents and Broker to threaten to blackball the loan officer and bank who refuses to take the bribes offered by the Reno Fraudster Realtor for the fraudulent loans then closes the fraudulent loans with other lenders while threatening to get the loan officer fired for not "doing what everyone does." It's the Do Nothing Mortgage Bankers Association Fraud Committee Members (many presidents of their banks)who refuse to take action on the fraudulent loans their companies originated because they don't want to lose the Realtor business. So naturally their local managers nationwide do the same. It's the Do Nothing Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae who refuse to act on the fraudulent loans when presented with the Mortgage Fraud because they're worried Wall Street will find out how at risk they really are. Integrity in the quality of the loans purchased by the secondary market? Ha ha. Now that's a house of a trillion cards. There is no quality in those loans - it's all smoke and mirrors. In a falling tide, all the garbage (foreclosures) is revealed. The IRS has described perpetuators of Mortgage Fraud as "economic terorists" and profits from Mortgage Fraud as Money Laundering. Due to Mortgage Fraud being the fastest growing white collar crime, all these Do Nothings mean the trillions of dollars in the American real esatate market is a House of Cards rapidly crumbling down and makes the S & L Crisis look small in comparison which each one of us ended up paying for. Suck it up my fellow Americans as the Perfect Storm of Mortgage Fraud is upon us and the lenders and Realtors will soon find a way to make us pay again rather than Do Anything now to avoid it.
Excuse my noob question, but what did Cox have to gain, a free place to live. I looked up owner financing, the owner finances the deal, Cox never pays so he gets a free place to live right? If in default they foreclose and he can't sell to another person right? Also why bring in empty boxes to fool the neighbors? I don't get that?
I wondered about that too. The article wasn't clear at all about how the scammers would profit. Sure, they stole the houses with fake ID and paperwork tricks, then what? The only thing I can think of, is that they used the stolen houses for collateral and other loans, or they actually sold some of them to suckers? Can any RE experts out there make this clear?
I guess they could quickly flip to a another party for a low price? Since they are holding the deed.?
Here's an article that might explain how it works and how they profit. I understand that the victims are the Lenders and Home owners. Very popular in Ontario Canada, because of the lax Canadain laws. http://www.cbc.ca/consumers/market/files/scams/real_estate/index.html
incredible dr brown who got taken to the cleaners is my sisters in laws husbands co worker. i saw that and almost crapped