California Woman Convicted In Upfront Fee Refinance Scam

In California, Diana Maria Lozano, of Hollister, pleaded no contest on Wednesday to one felony count of obtaining money by false pretenses in a plea bargain with the San Benito County District Attorney's Office. She bilked a local family out of $9,600 and forced them into foreclosure in a home refinance scam. She originally faced additional charges of grand theft by embezzlement and two counts of forgery, which were apparently dropped by prosecutors in the plea agreement.

The mechanics of the scam simply involved Lozano, who held herself out as an employee of a local finance company that she no longer worked for, talking the family into giving her a $2,100 upfront payment to begin payments on a purported refinance, and then to continue to make payments to Lozano of $500 to $1,000 a week. Lozano pocketed the payments and failed to make payments on an existing mortgage, forcing the home into foreclosure. (I guess you can call this scam a form of equity skimming, but without the need to actually take title to the property and "skim" the rent from a subsequently-placed tenant; the money being "skimmed" in this case comes right from the homeowner without him relinquishing title). For more, see Hollister Con Artist Convicted (Hollister Free Lance).