Non Profit Law Firm Teams w/ Private Attorneys To Chase Long Island Outfit Allegedly Targeting Homeowners In Foreclosure w/ Loan Modification Ripoffs

In Nassau County, New York, The Wall Street Journal reports:

• Lawyers working pro bono for borrowers facing foreclosures say loan-modification "specialists" are pretending they can convince banks to accept lower monthly mortgage payments in return for fees from the borrowers. Foreclosed homeowners, whose cases are entered into public records, have become a prime target for loan modification cons, they say.

• On Wednesday, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, along with Manhattan law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court in Nassau County seeking to thwart people they claim are loan-modification scammers.

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• The complaint names as defendants several companies it said operated out of the same cluster of offices in a building on Stewart Avenue in Garden City, N.Y. None of the companies could be reached to comment.

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• In New York, it is illegal under a 2008 statute for "distressed property consultants" to charge an up-front fee for help in getting a loan modification. Since February 2010, when the Lawyer's Committee began keeping track of modification fraud complaints, more than 10,000 homeowners nationwide have claimed they were victims of similar scams resulting in more than $27 million in losses. About 500 of those complaints are from New York, which the claimants said resulted in more than $2 million in losses.

• The New York attorney general's office has been investigating loan modification scams since 2009. In March 2010, the office obtained an $8.8 million judgment against Infinity Mitigation Services, a loan consultant, and obtained a court order to shut down the company.

For more, see Suits Claim Loan Scams.