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Beware of home saviors seeking cash

By DAN HIGGINS THE ADVOCATE
First published in print: Sunday, April 12, 2009

A Rotterdam couple is tangled up with a company that has promised to fix their mortgage problems, but so far have done nothing while the threat of foreclosure hangs over their heads.
     
Tom LaFontaine and his wife, Tammy, bought their Rotterdam house about five years ago. It was their first home and they were proud and happy homeowners.

At the time, Tom was earning more than $80,000 a year driving trucks for a supermarket chain. Tammy, who suffers from chronic health problems because of an automobile accident, stays home. But with Tom's good job they easily could afford their monthly mortgage payments of about $1,200.

Last year, though, problems arose at work. Tom got involved with a dispute with his boss and was fired. He was briefly reinstated and then fired again. Then he was unemployed for the first three months of this year.

Now he is working again, driving trucks for another company, but he's only earning about half what he made in his old job.

He can no longer pay the bills. He may lose his house. And the company he paid to help him has so far done nothing, as far as he can tell.

In January, LaFontaine received a phone call from People's First Financial, a company based in California. The sales person offered him a deal. The company would renegotiate his mortgage for him.

The catch? He had to pay them $3,100 up front.

In hindsight, LaFontaine realizes that this sounded sketchy. In fact, President Barack Obama himself warned Americans last week of just this sort of proposal. If someone is offering to fix your mortgage for you and wants money up front before they do anything, it's probably a scam, the President said.

But in January, LaFontaine was desperate and this seemed like a lifeline. He paid People's First $2,400, and then another $700. So far, all the company has done is request more paperwork like pay stubs and tax forms. And it appears as though they haven't once contacted the LaFontaine's mortgage holder, Midland Mortgage Corp. Midland Mortgage told LaFontaine a week ago that they hadn't heard anything from People's First.

I called People's First twice and asked to speak with someone about what they are doing to help the LaFontaines, and why their services are worth $3,100.

Both times I was told that "the boss" was gone for the day (it was early afternoon) and there was no one else available to speak with me.

Now, the LaFontaines are more than $10,000 behind on their mortgage and fading fast.

"I think (People's First) took my money and disappeared," LaFontaine said.

"It's so hard," he said. "It's not just being behind financially. It's your dignity and pride. I worked so hard to buy a house and now I'm set back to where I was 15 years ago."

According to news reports, there are plenty of people in similar straits as the LaFontaines.

A report from Reuters this week warns that "fraudsters are using the publicity around foreclosure-prevention plans to lure desperate homeowners into costly scams."

The report said that scam artists usually charge troubled borrowers an upfront fee, promising mortgage relief, and then fail to deliver anything....................http://www.timesunion.com/AspS.....p;newsdate=4/13/2009

all of these bankers need to go under the control of the us government and president right now indeed to stop them from what they are doing and to keep the rates at zero for those people that want to have a home if they are disadvantaged at all.