Loan Modification Racket Continues Unabated For Years, Jumping From State To State Ripping Off Homeowners While Flying Under Criminal Law Enforcement Radar

In Houston, Texas, KHOU-TV Channel 11 reports:

• Customers say a Houston company that promised to help save their homes from foreclosure, really did little more than drain their bank accounts.
  
  The KHOU 11 News I-Team had barely started its investigation into Sunbelt Fidelity Corporation, when the president of the company, Janice McCarthy, sent a letter threatening a lawsuit.
  
  But a trail of complaints and court filings accuse McCarthy of having a record of involvement with companies accused of ripping off consumers.
  
  Customers like Richey Tanksley.
  
  “Every bit of pride that you have is gone,” explained Tanksley as he walked through the door of a friend’s San Antonio apartment. Without the generosity of that friend, Tanksley would be on the streets. “I pull my little pillows off the couch and I pull the bed out, I unfold it and that’s where I sleep,” demonstrated Tanksley.
  
  It’s a life he never dreamed of when he bought a home near Austin five years ago. Unfortunately, Tanksley eventually ran into some financial trouble. Fearing foreclosure, he hired the Sunbelt Fidelity Corporation.
  
  “Basically they were a company that just helped people with their foreclosures,” said Tanksley citing the company’s pitch. “They came in and made it possible to keep their homes.” He says he made an initial $1,200 payment to Sunbelt Fidelity. In exchange, he says the company told him they’d take care of the rest including handling his bank.
  
  “They told me not to communicate with Wells Fargo because that's what they were going to do,” Tanksley said. “So if I had any calls from Wells Fargo, don't answer them.”
  
  He says Sunbelt Fidelity also told him not to send his lender the monthly mortgage payment. Instead, Tanksley says he was instructed to send Sunbelt Fidelity nearly $500 a month. “I just thought that money that I sent them was going to make my life alright again,” Tanksley explained. But a few months later, his lender contacted him: He’d lost the house to foreclosure.
  
  “I was in absolute disbelief,” recalled Tanksley. “I was like, ‘well, wait a minute. What's going on here?” Tanksley called his lender. “They said they had never been contacted by Sunbelt Fidelity,” Tanksley said. “Wells Fargo had never had any contact. They had no communication with anybody.”
  
  But the complaints don’t stop with Tanksley.
  
  The 11 News I-Team found similar complaints from Sunbelt Fidelity Customers in at least five other states. In December, the North Carolina Department of Justice ordered Sunbelt Fidelity Corporation to cease and desist providing “illegal loan modifications” in the state.
  
  It turns out, those are familiar accusations for McCarthy, Sunbelt’s president.
  
  The I-Team discovered McCarthy’s former company, East Coast Fidelity, was shut down by the Rhode Island Attorney General in 2011. In court filings, investigators claimed they were unaware of even one homeowner who received payment help from McCarthy’s company.
  
   Florida records show McCarthy was also a former officer of Ameridebt Relief Corp.
  
  The New Hampshire Banking Department obtained a cease and desist order against Ameridebt Relief Corp. and fined the company $10,000 after investigators say the company collected $4,512 from a customer but failed to provide the mortgage modification promised. New Hampshire investigators say some of those payments were made to Ameridebt Relief Corp. during the same time McCarthy was the company’s director.
  
  “I think that what's alarming is that they've managed to continue this scam for years now and basically have jumped from state to state,” said Monica Russo with the Better Business Bureau.

For more, see Consumers say Houston company took their money, let bank take their homes.