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2. Looking for a Home >>
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A Must to Avoid!
When it comes to your wallet, there are any number of dishonest people and scams willing to separate you from your money!
Advance-Fee Loans
Most recently, reports focus on companies operating over the internet or through telemarketing calls offering "advance-fee" loans. Many of these loans are for people to pay their rent, buy presents or for personal reasons. They are not loans to buy a home.
Says The Washington Post (12-30-06) "The Internet has made it easier for scam artists to find victims. Consumers are drawn in by legitimate-looking Web sites, complete with privacy policies, customer service numbers and online loan applications. Soon after filling out applications, the victims typically receive phone call$ saying their loans were approved, but because of their credit ratings, they must first wire deposits or collateral." (You can find the complete article at the end of this page.)
Mortgage Lender Fees
When it comes to buying your next home, reputable lenders will charge an inspection fee for the house. This fee is usually less than $500 and is a one time pass-through to you from the home inspector. Typically the lender makes no money on the inspection of the house you want to buy.
Mortgage lenders will also charge a processing fee which is also typically less than $500. Well, you might ask "Process what. . . pork rinds?"
Seriously, the purchase of a home is relatively complicated involving many parties and processes; the buyer, seller, lender or loan company, home inspector, lawyers for the buyer and seller, State and local regulations, the EPA and so forth.
Consequently there is a lot of paperwork which must be correct with no errors, otherwise your loan will not close. Most of this work is done before the closing (when we earn our keep) by our people. This fee covers our up-front work which is required regardless of whether or not a loan closes and we get paid.
Please notice that these two fees are for initial work actually done to process your loan. They are not fees related to the final loan! The "fee" for your mortgage (or "loan") is the monthly interest you pay to borrow the money. This is the difference between reputable loan companies and the "advance-fee" scam artists.
Predatory Lending
Every mortgage loan is different because, in our experience, no two home buyers are alike - your personal finances are yours alone, the home you want is special, credit scores are different, thus virtually every home loan is unique.
For these reasons, it pays to look very carefully at every "offer" shouted at you because there is no such thing as "one low rate!". Low rate quotes are typically designed to get you to fill in paperwork and commit your time hoping for a deal that's too good to be true.
This practice is called predatory lending.
Talk is cheap - people will tell you they will save you hundreds of dollars a month, but then it ends up costing you thousands over the long run.
Predatory lenders are targeting home buyers seeking to either purchase a new home or refinance their current home. Often the home buyers are searching online for only the best rates without pausing to consider what they will have to pay 1) to initiate and close their loan, and 2) monthly for the life of the loan.
Predatory Lenders will offer you a great deal promising no points or up-front fees and great closing costs at a monthly rate in your budget range. When it comes time to close on your new loan, everything's changed. You're now paying up-front fees, additional points, a higher interest rate or monthly payments (or both!). There may also be prepayment penalties so that you cannot get out of the new loan without making a large lump-sum payment.
What Should I Do?
Our best advice - don't get caught in the hype and excitement of predatory comeons.
Get a Good Faith Estimate from your lender or loan officer first thing at the beginning of the process.
Make sure that your broker or lender is a member of the Better Business Bureau.
If you're online, don't just look at the sign on their website, click on it and make sure that it is real by tracking it through to the BBB landing authentication page.
If you are thinking of refinancing or moving up in Connecticut and looking for a new loan or mortgage, be very careful. Check with the BBB first and know who you are dealing with.
We hope that this information is helpful to you. Thank you for visiting us and considering Acorn for your home mortgage.
Convincing Web Sites Aid Rise in Loan Scams
Victims Get Nothing In Return for Fees
By Annys Shin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 23, 2006; Page D01
Judging by its Web site, Michelle Ford, a 35-year old loan adjuster from Charlotte, said Fairview Lending Group looked like a reputable company. Over two months, she sent Fairview $2,856 in collateral for a $20,000 loan that never materialized.
Dykelia Hall, 23, of Springfield, needed money for Christmas presents and turned to American Allied Financial which claimed to be located in a West End office building. She put $600 down on a $6,000 loan that she never received.
Monica Aliman, 34, of San Jose, wired American Allied Financial her November rent money in the belief that she would receive her $8,000 loan in time to pay her landlord. She said she thought it was odd she had to send money to get money.
"I thought I just didn't know enough about the loan process," she said.
Ford, Hall, and Aliman are among thousands of people who have fallen prey to what consumer watchdogs say is a recent surge in advance-fee loan scams, including several using addresses in the Washington area.
The scam has been around for decades. Many consumers are not aware that it is illegal to charge lending fees in advance. People with poor or no credit are enticed by ads, direct mail solicitations or telemarketing calls promising fast money at favorable terms.
The Internet has made it easier for scam artists to find victims. Consumers are drawn in by legitimate-looking Web sites, complete with privacy policies, customer service numbers and online loan applications. Soon after filling out applications, the victims typically receive phone calls saying their loans were approved, but because of their credit ratings, they must first wire deposits or collateral.
Once the consumers oblige, the promised loans never materialize. The victims can no longer get in touch with the company and, having given out their bank account and Social Security numbers, are also vulnerable to identity theft.
In 2005, consumer protection agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission, the Better Business Bureau and the National Association of Attorneys General received nearly 14,000 complaints about advance-fee loan and credit-protection scams, according to Consumer Sentinel, a government clearinghouse that collects data on consumer fraud and identity theft. Consumer protection agencies have issued warnings about advance-fee loan scams in Virginia, Nebraska, Ohio, Michigan, and Oklahoma during the past six months.
Law enforcement officials have trouble tracking down loan scammers, who typically operate outside the country, creating a roadblock of jurisdictional issues. "These rogue operatives move quickly and reopen under various names. The address provided by such firms are often false, non-existent or drop boxes," said Edward J. Johnson III, president and chief executive of the Better Business Bureau for metropolitan Washington.
The bureau said it has received more than 140 complaints this year about advance-fee loan scams, compared with 22 last year. It has also received more than 3,130 inquiries about advance-fee loan operations, up from 810.
Many of the complaints are about companies using Washington-area addresses.
Fairview Lending, for example, claimed to share the same Bethesda office tower as BET founder Robert L. Johnson's RJL Cos. and the law firm Lerch, Early & Brewer. Its name doesn't appear on the building directory. The building's management company, Realty Management, did not return phone messages. Fairview's phone number was not working as of Thursday.
American Allied Financial told consumers that it was located at 2100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Since mid-November, the concierge has turned away several angry consumers looking for American Allied's offices. A spokeswoman for George Washington University, which owns the office building, said it has never had a tenant called American Allied.
The company's toll-free phone number was not working on Thursday, and its Web site went dark earlier this week after the D.C. attorney general alerted the company hosting the site that American Allied was using a false address and hadn't responded to the agency's request for a response to consumer complaints.
Better Business Bureau letters addressed to Fairview and American Allied were also returned, Edward Johnson said.
Consumers didn't get wise to the scams until it was too late.
Ford was looking for a way to consolidate debt when she found Fairview through a Web site that promised to find the best lender for her within 48 hours.
Fairview said that because of her credit rating, it could offer only a $20,000 "collateral loan" that required three initial payments of $469.05. She was willing to pay because she was told the money would go toward paying off the loan.
After she sent the money, the loan didn't turn up in her bank account. When she called Fairview, she was told that the lender had evaluated her credit further and wanted four more payments. In early November, Ford sent them. Again, the loan didn't appear. She asked for her money back and was told she would have it by the end of November. Last week, when she tried calling the company and wasn't able to reach anyone or leave a message, she knew she had been scammed.
"I am extremely mad at myself to be taken for $2,800," she said. "That's a month's pay and with Christmas coming up -- I should've known. I should've picked up on it." Hall said she needed money for Christmas presents and car repairs when she turned to American Allied Financial just before Thanksgiving. She found the company through a Google Web search.
"It did really look like a legitimate Web site," she said.
Hall thought it was odd that she had to wire money to Atlanta to get her loan, but "the holiday season was coming up and I thought I had better get it done," she said.
She was told her money would be available Dec. 8. When she checked, the money wasn't there. She called American Allied only to find its voice-mail box was full.
Hall, who does administrative work for a local advertising firm, is working extra hours to make back the money she lost.
When Aliman's money did not arrive, she looked up the company on the Better Business Bureau Web site, and found no records for American Allied before October 2006 -- when the company first called her.
Aliman, an office clerk for an electrical distributor, has since had to ask for two advances from her employer and has racked up $1,000 in overdraft charges.
"When you get set back like that, it's really hard to catch up," she said.
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