DREAMS FORECLOSED: The Rampant Theft of Americans’ Homes Through Equity-stripping Foreclosure 'Rescue' Scams

What arguably is the definitive work on the national epidemic that is often referred to as "home equity theft", "equity stripping", foreclosure/mortgage "rescue" scams, and other descriptive names is the June, 2005 report titled:

• DREAMS FORECLOSED: The Rampant Theft of Americans’ Homes Through Equity-stripping Foreclosure "Rescue" Scams

Written by Steve Tripoli and Elizabeth Renuart of the National Consumer Law Center ("NCLC"), this is an exhaustive, sixty eight page report that is based on their experiences, numerous interviews conducted by the NCLC plus a review of cases and reports from consumer attorneys, law enforcement officials and the news media in seventeen states plus the District of Columbia.

The report is divivided into several sections that are captioned as follows:

1. INTRODUCTION: THE BLIND SPOT 100,000 HOMES WIDE, which gives an overview of the report, including pictures of actual road signs that are commonly used by "rescue" operators,
2. PART 1: STEALING WHATEVER IS NAILED DOWN, which describes what apparently are the three predominant types of "rescue" scams, why homeowners fall for these scams, and gives a taste of what these scams mean to real people by telling the story of two victims in the hard hit region of Southern California,
3. PART 2: THE HIDING-IN-PLAIN-SIGHT PANDEMIC, which goes into some detail and includes stories of similar scams from seventeen states and the District of Columbia, for the NCLC's stated purposes of (a) "want(ing) to definitively prove that a common rebuttal to news of consumer scams, that 'it’s just a few bad apples doing it,' is categorically beyond rational claim when it comes to foreclosure "rescue" scams", (b) "want(ing) the public and the news media to be aware of the many different tactics these scammers employ to cash in other people's home equity", and (c) "want(ing) to show, through others' experience, the difficulties of fighting these scams ..., in order to bolster the case for reform that (is made) later in the report",
4. PART 3. DO-IT-YOURSELF EQUITY STRIPPING: THE INFORMAL INDUSTRY TEACHING "RESCUE" TACTICS, which discusses the "educational industry" that teaches foreclosure rescue and is commonly advertised on late-night television. The report quickly and fairly points out that not all of the businesses in this educational industry are scams. Interesting references are made to well-known TV real estate gurus "Millionaire Maker Ron LeGrand" and Carleton Sheets (and in a later section of the report, Robert Allen),
5. PART 4. FIGHTING BACK: WHAT REGULATORS, THE LAW, ENFORCEMENT, AND CONSUMERS CAN DO, which (a) addresses whether homeowners can fight back effectively, (b) admonishes the states to "beef up (their) laws or witness a mounting loss of home ownership", (c) discusses consumer "do's and don'ts, (d) offers, as a model, one way of responding to this epidemic by decribing an outreach and support program involving the Clergy Against Senior Exploitation (CASE) Partnership and the Denver District Attorney's Office that is funded by the United States Department of Justice,
6. APPENDIX A: EXHIBITS, which includes a number of samples of the type of solicitations used by "foreclosure rescue" operators,
7. APPENDIX B: OVERVIEW OF EXISTING STATE LAWS, which describes (a) the types of activities covered, (b) the scope of the laws, (c) notice and cancellation rights (d) substantive protections.

For anyone interested in quickly getting up to speed on the "foreclosure rescue" / "home equity theft" /"deed theft" epidemic that has infected the entire country, I vigorously urge you to obtain and read this report.

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