Texas AG Gets Permanent Injunction Against Upfront Fee Foreclosure Rescue Operator; Firm To Pay $1.55M

Buried in a recent press release is the following announcement from the Office of the Texas Attorney General:

• [A]ttorney General Abbott revealed the results of a recent enforcement action against a mortgage rescue fraud scheme. Arizona-based Abell Mediation, Inc., and its president and vice-president, Elizabeth Cory and Michael Cory, respectively, were charged with fraudulently claiming that their company could save homeowners from imminent foreclosure. Homeowners who were delinquent on mortgage payments responded to the defendants’ solicitation cards and Web site. The defendants’ cards claimed that “Abell Mediation, Inc. has saved over 7,000 homes from foreclosure,” boasted about a “staff of highly trained loss mitigation specialists” with established relationships with mortgage lenders and banks nationwide and promised to “achieve results that no one else can.”

• Under an agreement secured by the Attorney General, the defendants are permanently enjoined from conducting a foreclosure mitigation business in the future. The defendant is also required to pay a total of $1.55 million in fines, restitution and attorneys’ fees.

Go here for the Texas AG 12-10-08 press release.

Go here for the Agreed Final Judgment with Abell Mediation, Inc.. loan modification