rssMortgage Fraud Threatens Housing Rebound
Monday, November 30, 2009 at 3:28 pm
- 47 Comments
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With home prices continuing to fall and more foreclosures yet to come, it’s clear that tough times remain for a housing market recovery. And to add to the troubles, another threat to any rebound is emerging: mortgage fraud.
The risk of mortgage fraud in the third quarter of this year on U.S. home loans shot up 11 percent from the previous quarter, according to Interthinx, a firm that provides fraud prevention services to lenders. But unlike the inflated home values and incomes that marked the mortgage fraud common during the housing boom, things are different this time around. Interthinx, which analyzes mortgage fraud nationally, and uses its risk measure to show where it may be increasing the most, found a continuing shift to schemes involving bank-owned foreclosed homes, and short sales, in which an owner sells the house for less than what’s owed on the mortgage and the lender forgives the remaining debt. The firm also reported that real estate agents and other professionals increasingly are involved in the schemes, which are growing in popularity due to the abundant supply of foreclosures, and the fact that appraisals frequently aren’t required in order to sell distressed properties.
[Economy1]The fraud goes beyond just just ripping off banks. Mortgage fraud leads to more property value declines in hard-hit neighborhoods, leaves homeowners already in distress in even worse shape, and ultimately will end up costing taxpayers, who will be stuck with the costs when loans go bad.
As fraud picks up, a typical scheme increasingly works like this: A homeowner underwater on a mortgage, owing more than the home is worth, arranges a short sale – with a friend or relative as the buyer. The relationship is never disclosed to the lender. The home then gets deeded back or gifted to the troubled borrower shortly after the sale. Or, the bank unwittingly accepts a lowball short sale offer, allowing the new owner to quickly flip the property to a buyer already on standby, willing to pay a higher price. Such schemes amount to fraud because buyers and sellers lie to the bank about the true nature of the transactions. Banks lose more money than they would have, had the short sales occurred at their true market value – the profits go into the pockets of the flippers. Some investors only flip the properties again, saddling the buyer’s lender with a property that’s not worth the mortgage amount.
Flipping foreclosures and short sales is taking off as the latest real estate craze, with numerous web sites popping up to market advice on turning quick profits on distressed properties. And short sales also are expected to only increase as loan modification efforts continue to falter, and borrowers facing foreclosure have few other options. Interthinx expects fraud involving a “straw” borrower – a deceptive stand-in used as cover for a questionable transaction – to also become more frequent as a result.
“Since many large for-profit schemes during the boom were fueled by a steady stream of straw borrowers recruited through ‘investment’ clubs and networks, the coincidental proliferation of “get rich quick” websites targeting short sale and REO investors and the continuing popularity of “flip this house” programs on TV suggests that there is a significant pool of potentially willing participants, and that left unchecked, the damage could be significant,” Interthinx said.
The problem for neighborhoods with distressed homes is that investors buying them up and flipping them can destabilize a community even further, since some investors may not maintain properties or may walk away from losses. Using relatives for short sale fraud means the bank ends up approving a mortgage that the owner still may not be able to afford, creating more losses, both for the bank and for the neighborhood.
And, increasingly, people involved in fraud schemes are finding ways to finance them through taxpayer-backed Federal Housing Administration loans, an agency already dealing with delinquency problems and and mortgage fraud, said Robert Simpson, president of Investors Mortgage Asset Recovery Co. in Irvine, Calf., a firm that analyzes mortgage fraud. The FHA’s loan volume has quadrupled since 2006, and FHA-backed loans have been beset by rising defaults that some contend put the agency at risk for a taxpayer bailout. Between the FHA, and government-controlled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, nearly 90 percent of all mortgages are backed by the U.S. taxpayer. Banks and lenders took the losses, at least initially, the last time around. This time, taxpayers may end up on the hook, he said.
“Anytime there’s money out there, someone will begin trying to figure out a way to get to it,” Simpson said. “Right now, the fraud gets shipped over to the FHA. We’ve got to hope they are being very diligent, because if they are not, the damage will be irreversible.”
Mortgage fraud played a huge role in the mortgage market collapse. Borrowers qualified for loans they couldn’t afford when brokers inflated their incomes, sometimes without their knowledge.These days, fraud revolves less around the origination of the mortgage loan and more with all the different transactions that take place over distressed properties, from sales of Real Estate Owned homes to short sales, said Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade publication that follows the subprime industry. The well-documented proliferation of foreclosure rescue and loan modification scams is a prime example, Cecala said.
Mortgage fraud also is on the rise because former subprime loan officers are out there looking for new jobs, and new ways to make money, he noted.
“Whenever there’s a new transaction, there’s a new way to game they system, and this is exactly what people are trying to do,” he said.
Short sales at first seem an unlikely target for fraud, because they can be a lengthy and difficult process, with banks often taking months to approve sales, if they do at all. For that reason, Cecala said, he believes short sales – at least for now – comprise only a small piece of the mortgage fraud picture. But the Treasury Department is expected to issue guidelines soon on streamlining short sales and offering financial incentives to borrowers and lenders. The push for more short sales, combined with a backlog of foreclosed homes, distressed homeowners, and banks anxious to get foreclosures off their books, will likely make short sale and REO flipping fraud more prevalent.
A recent investigation by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune of sales in two Florida counties, for example, found that banks had lost “untold millions” because of short sale flippers using questionable appraisals and failing to disclose that a quick sale at a higher price had already been arranged. The report found a small industry of flippers buying distressed properties and reselling them within days. Real estate professionals were a key part of the schemes, participating in both buying and selling properties. All the losses added up, with just the most suspicious sales, where properties were flipped within a day, already costing banks $1.7 million in Sarasota and Manatee counties alone.
Flipping properties isn’t illegal, but it can involved fraud in several ways, explained Ann Fulmer, vice president of business relations for Interthinx. It’s when a seller never mentions higher offers on the table from bona fide purchasers, or fails to disclose that the seller already has a contract with a buyer for a higher price. Red flags sometimes should be raised when borrowers use transactional funding, which means essentially renting someone else’s money for one day, in order to appear in a stronger financial position. Then there’s the the use of land trusts – they’re not illegal, in and of themselves. Land trusts are organizations created to purchase and hold real estate. But short sale gurus are advising investors to set them up to evade FHA anti-flipping rules, and to hide the true borrower’s identity, which can amount to fraud.
“Short sale flips are today’s equivalent of the California gold rush,” Fulmer wrote recently.
She and other mortgage experts noted that banks already are on to some of the schemes. In some cases, banks are requiring everyone involved in a transaction, from the real estate agent to the mortgage broker, to sign affidavits swearing they have aren’t in the flipping business with anyone else involved in the sale. Cecala, of Inside Mortgage Finance, said federal law enforcement agents also are moving more aggressively even on smaller cases of mortgage fraud, unlike during the housing boom, when only major cases drew attention.
But a fraud specialist for a major wholesale lender, who declined to be named, said there’s still plenty of misdeeds going on. Some borrowers are filing amended tax returns showing a much higher income than the borrower’s true income. The borrower pays a penalty to the IRS for unpaid taxes, but uses the higher income figure to qualify for a bigger loan, or for a loan he wouldn’t otherwise have qualified for. In addition, some builders still are offering “silent seconds” to borrowers who can’t afford a home on their own. A silent second refers to a second mortgage, sometimes used for a downpayment, that is not disclosed to the lender of the first mortgage.
Stated income and no documentation loans known as liar loans, may be gone, the fraud specialist said, but some lenders still are seeing borrowers and loan officers still trying to fudge or doctor financial information, a common practice during the pre-liar loan days of the 1980s, he said. “We’re seeing white out again,” he said.
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Comment posted November 30, 2009 @ 7:43 pm
Wait a minute… There may have been a day when there was a lot of fraud going on with flipping homes, but it isn't the same game it was two years ago.
First off the big fraud game was to have an appraiser in your pocket and have them drive up the price of your flip for you. Can't do that any more. The banks pick the appraiser (who usually sucks) so they can't be influenced by us evil real estate investors.
Second is that the banks are creating an adversarial market where people are getting tired of dealing with their conditions for buying homes. Buyers are shying away from short sales and REOs now because of it. Between that and damn near requiring buyers to have cash, who else do they think are going to buy their homes but investors? And if us investors are going to go through the ulcer causing process of buying a short sale, we sure as hell need to get paid for it!
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Comment posted December 2, 2009 @ 12:38 am
What a lot of nonsense. Why is a speculator, flipper, or anyone else required to notify a bank of a buyer that the flipper already lined up, or what the “appropriate” market price is, or whether the ultimate buyer/owner is the actual original borrower who arranged the short sale?
The banks are FOR PROFIT entities that already get to borrow the public money at 0% to 0.25% and then lend it back to us at 5% or 29.99% for credit cards. It's criminal. The banks need buyers and sellers to tell them about every little profit making possibility so that the bank can take those opportunities for itself? And the banks should get taxpayer bailouts?
The banks ought to be held to the same standard as any private investor (who isn't a billionaire and who didn't buy a congressman like Chris Dodd or Barney Frank or Phil Gramm). If they aren't smart enough to figure out what market price is, that's their problem. If they can't figure out what a good loan risk is, that's their problem.
The problem here is government intervention and billionaire bailouts for the banks and bond investors who aren't allowed to lose even one penny because taxpayer money compensates them. If they win, they win billions. If they lose, they lose nothing because they get a Tim Geithner mulligan.
This article is ridiculous because it sees the banks as some sort of charity case. In addition to the forcible theft of our public money through corrupt and bribed public officials who will certainly get million dollar a year jobs at the same banks they bail out right after they leave office, in addition to that, the public is supposed to help them rape us?
Maybe they can make it a felony to not rat out your neighbor who's behind on his mortgage if you find out that he has $50 in cash hidden in one of his dresser drawers so that the bank can collect its due.
There will be violent riots here within 24 months. When the bills come due for this horrible corruption, blood will flow in the streets and to quell the violence using even greater violence, government will be forced to associate pissed off Americans with foreign terrorists, or to start a war, or some other crazy business. But when these big bills come due and ordinary families earning $60,000 to $80,000 a year for four people living in a house, when they start getting bigger tax bills and they have trouble affording food while working full time all to pay off the debts incurred to pay Hank Paulson and Robert Rubin's bonuses and $17 billion in bonuses at Goldman Sachs, etc., they will get very upset and it's going to get ugly here.
Within a year, the banks aren't going to need collections agents, they are going to need firefighters to sift through burned out branches looking for bank property.
Comment posted December 2, 2009 @ 6:32 pm
so what? short sale straw man/people lie to the banks…the banks have been lying to the people since the INCEPTION/creation/invention…. of banks….feels different when the shoe is on the other foot huh ?…hopefully all the banks will go belly up…back to borrowing cash from the streets like gangsters !!!..3% VIG per week !!!
Comment posted December 3, 2009 @ 4:25 pm
What duty does a buyer owe to a sellers lender that they're going to immediatley sell the property?
Comment posted December 8, 2009 @ 11:43 am
Blaming Sub-Prime loan officers is like O'Bama blaming Bush new problems,new standards. Those involved in this activity are not old sub-pime people leading th way. Investor clubs, marketers, RE groups who trained during the easy credit times are now perfected in their approach.
Again their is an easy fix to this problem but we are so bogged down in “tracking” and “identification” that no action is bing taken. (p.s. I want the job of tracking fraud, get paid to state the obvious, wow! Now that is a scam, who pays these people anyway) Perfect complain all you want as long as nothing gets fixed. The American way is to seize opportunity..right? So some have found a way to buy a home at a lower price, good for them but when fraud is part of it this should be punished.
I know how to fix the problem, question is who actually listens or gives a #%!@?
Comment posted December 13, 2009 @ 3:37 pm
This is another complex scam showing how con men can take your property and destroy families.
Help expose these men.
Here is a comment worthy of note which I found trolling the comments on my blog:
Remember if you are dealing with an unscrupulous licensed professional (attorney, mortgage broker, etc.) you can file a grievance with the licensing agency who will investigate, prosecute if necessary, and possibly require restitution.
Comment:
[Editor’s Note: If con men looked like crooks they wouldn't get anywhere. They always ingratiate themselves and seem like good people interested in helping. They intentionally do not appear to be much different from legitimate lawyers, auditors, debt counseling etc. Livinglies does not vouch for the accuracy of any statement contained in the article below]
A Warning to others having Mortgage problems: Re: A family of predatory lenders…
Our family was having some problems with our first mortgage we got behind and were facing a potential foreclosure.
We got a lot of the typical rescue mailers telling us that we had plenty of equity and not to worry. We knew this and we only needed 20 to 30 thousand dollars to bring the loan current. Plus we knew we could sell another property that would pay off part of our loan at any time. That seemed simple enough,.
Now let the nightmare begin…
We were approached by a broker / lender named Jim Marks out of Tampa Florida who said he could rescue us and the rates would be very low because we had so much equity in our waterfront home. He said he could find us plenty of money. We were very clear to him that we did not have the income to do any major loan an we only needed a small amount.
Fast forward… He befriended our family, had lunch many time in our home and other places , went snorkeling and diving on our boat with his family, he also wanted to see all the waterfront and residential properties my family had invested in, he also brought out investors to see what we had, later we found out that the investors were his own relatives (Barry Silber the lawyer / hard money lender with Linear capital of Tampa ).
They wanted to know if any friends had good deals on waterfront properties, I fell for all of it like a sucker and provide what they needed, Marks assisted by Silber structured a deal putting everything into the [deal?] that we already owned, they created a corporation for our family, as a JV partner Marks took 50% and gave us 50%, but took complete control of everything, he sold land we had, used the money for other purchases, took out loans without approval from our family.
As we were about to sell three of our waterfront lots and an investment home, he said don't do it put it in the JV and we would do much better later with him in control. So we trusted him with everything including the check book.
We thought he was our friend and would managed and protect us but boy were we wrong.
We had no idea that it was all a set up from the very beginning to get control of everything we had. It is clear now that we had a big target on our backs called equity. We were steered by Mr Marks right into what I now believe was nothing more than family of Predatory Lenders.
They got me and my family by saying that they could rescue us but all we got was high interest rates etc etc. They eventually forced us into a foreclosure, but always stood by with additional high cost loans in order to get them to stop their foreclosures. We were trapped.
We were forced to meet after hours at their offices to sign more rushed document that we did not really understand. (e.s.) Jim Marks would say don't worry I got your back and would never let you sign anything that would hurt you or your family. Papers were shuffled around for hours by the lawyer/lender Barry Silber and their title company that they all owned and controlled.
We did not want to sign anything but we were up against the wall and the mortgages that they gave us were all due again. They took a years worth of payments up front that night and paid themselves many fees. Now we had a new giant mortgage on our home that was due in one year it also had a rider that would take away all our rights to the JV that controlled all our Families properties if we didn't pay them back within that one year.
We told Marks that we can't pay this loan back and he said don't worry we will sell something in the JV to pay this off or refinance you again. The lawyer involved was Mr Mark’s relative, Barry Silber was also part of the company that gave us one or more of the mortgages. Before that year was up his cousin Barry Silber started foreclosure on everything and than said they could not lend any more money. What is astounding is that our Mortgage on our home was now over $ 1 million dollars. How did this happen in just 3 years?
How did we allow someone to take all our families properties? First we trusted Jim Marks as a friend and business partner. But he was clearly working his way into our family and eventually found out every aspect of our assets and liabilities. Second: We were not very smart with our finances. Third: We don't have much of an education and trusted him because he said he could handle everything properly.
Now we see that they were all very smart and we were conned over and over again into trusting a family of hard money lenders who had one motivation and that was to milk us of all our equity by what ever means possible. We all feel very bad because we let this happen to our families holdings. We believe that state and federal laws have been broken AND WE HAVE BEEN IN CONTACT WITH EVERY AGENCY POSSIBLE SEEKING JUSTICE. FROM LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT TO THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN. WE ARE ALSO FILING COMPLANTES WITH THE FLA BAR AND OTHER AGENCYS THAT CONTROL THE LIC OF THESE MEN IN THE HOPE THAT JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED. Law enforcement and media take notice…We would like others to give their advise or their own story if they have one about these people or like kind cases. So Don't ever fall for someone trying to rescue you with a hand of friendship. report Predatory lendenders and Mortgage fraud.
I can tell all of you that this web site has helped in several ways. Keep it going
Comment posted December 17, 2009 @ 10:58 am
Again another scam… This is the other bad face of the crisis
Comment posted January 3, 2010 @ 11:09 am
There are many way to conn the elderly read this story
Dear Michael,
Can you help us expose these companies and their principles? I am reaching 60 yrs old this Febuary with 4 young kids still at home, we could use some help and possibly prevent them from ever doing this again to anyone. Sincerely, Ray and Dorothy Shelton
Linear Capital, America's Mortgage Broker's Llc, Dale group
324 North Dale Mabry Hwy
Tampa Florida 333609
United States of America
Phone: 813-289-0154
Web Address:
Category: Attorney Generals
Submitted: Monday, December 21, 2009
Posted: Monday, December 21, 2009
COMPLAINTS FILED IN HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA CIVIL DIVISION CASE # 09 13757
PART OF COUNT II & COUNT III
CRIMINAL USURY,
CIVIL CONSPIRACY,
ILLEGAL LOANS, MISAPPROPRIATED ASSETS, ETC ETC.
UNATHORIZED REAL ESTATE PURCHASES AND SALES,
ESTIMATES BY CONSPRIATORS IS 4.5 MILLION.
WAITING FOR RESPONCE FROM SEVERAL
STATE AND FEDERAL LAW ENFORCMENT AGENCYS
NEW COMPAINTS COMING AGAINST MORE PARTIES INVOLVED.
Amanda Sigler Realty of Dunnellon Florida
How was this woman involved? How much did she gain?
Predatory lenders or Rescue Scamers?
Barry Silber, Jim Marks, Suzanne Marks.
Linear Capital, America's Mortgage Brokers LLC.
Affordable Home Funding, The title Team
Dale Group of Tampa Fl
Amanda Sigler Realty, Dunnellon Fl
324 N. Dale Mabry Hwy
Tampa Florida 33609
United States of America
Phone: 813 514 6200
Web Address:
Category: Was this ORGANIZED CRIME?
NEWS MEDIA TAKE NOTICE… HELP US EXPOSE HOW WE WERE CONNED BY A FAMILY OF PREDATORY LENDERS OUT OF TAMPA FLORIDA
To Whom it may concern,
It is our hope that one of you will investigate and expose these people and their companies. We have filed a lawsuit ( case # 09 13757 division H ) in circuit court Hillsborogh County, Florida. against some of them for Usury and other issues. My attorney thinks they might have violated some RICO statutes if they got more then 45% interest. I think its could be as high as 300%. Please read or story and help us stop them from ever doing this again.
Category: Predatory Lending Bait-and-Switch Equity Stripping Rescue Scamers
Why Should you Read this story and avoid these PEOPLE and their companies?
Re: Barry Silber, Jim Marks, Suzanne Marks, Amanda Sigler
Here is a comment worthy of note which I found trolling the comments on my blog: Remember if you are dealing with an unscrupulous licensed professional (attorney, mortgage broker, etc.) you can file a grievance with the licensing agency who will investigate, prosecute if necessary, and possibly require restitution.
Comment: [Editor’s Note: If con men looked like crooks they wouldn't’ get anywhere. They always ingratiate themselves and seem like good people interested in helping. They intentionally do not appear to be much different from legitimate lawyers, auditors, debt counseling etc. A
Warning to others having Mortgage problems:
Our family was having some problems with our mortgage, we got behind and were facing a potential foreclosure. We got a lot of the typical rescue mailers telling us that we had the plenty of equity and not to worry. We knew this and we only needed 20 to 50 thousand dollars to bring the loan current. Plus we knew that our family would loan us the money if we needed it, they would sell just one property that would pay off part of our loan at any time. That seemed simple enough,
NOW LET THE BARRY SILBER, JIM MARKS NIGHTMARE BEGIN…
We were approached by a kind broker / lender named Jim Marks out of Tampa Florida who said he could rescue us from a foreclosure and the rates would be very low because we had so much equity in our waterfront home. He said he could find us plenty of money. We were very clear to him that we did not have the income to do any major loan an we only needed a small amount.
THE SCAM: Seeing that we had a lot of equity, Marks gained our trust via some acts of kindness and eventually befriends our family, He showed great concern for our financial problem and found various ways to come to our home. He had lunch many times in our home and invited me out to lunch as his guest many times. He also worked his way into using our boats and waterfront property. He went snorkeling and diving on our boat with his family and we felt that he had a nice family and was sincere. After a while I shared some of our families information regarding investments that had been made. Jim Marks was very interested and wanted to see all the waterfront and residential properties my family had invested in, he also brought out investors to see what we had, later we found out that the investors were his own relatives (Barry Silber the lawyer / hard money lender with LINEAR CAPITIAL of Tampa ). Was Silber directing Marks? Was Marks the front man for either Silber or Linear?
The investor Barry Silber came to our home invited by Marks and talk about a long term Joint Venture and wanted to know if any of my friends had good deals on waterfront properties, I fell for all of it like a sucker and provide what they needed, Silber disappears for a long time but some how comes back as the hard money lender but we did not know that he was Marks relative. Marks is now telling us that we can get any loan from anyone except Silber. I think this is against the law because marks was steering us right into the hands of his relative, Did marks get kickbacks or other profits? Marks got 50% of the corp and many fees after flipping our loans. We shall See about that later during discovery.
I believe that Marks only assisted Barry Silber as a front man who looked for the elderly who had good equity but had problems with a foreclosure. Did Marks and Silber work as a team and structured a deal putting everything into the [deal?] that we already owned, We now believe that everything in the scam was planned from day one Marks even created a corporation for our family. We had no idea what Marks was doing with the company and can only guess that as a JV partner Marks took 50% and gave us 50%, Marks took complete control of everything, sold many lots we had, used the money for other purchases, took out loans without approval from our family. Were Marks and Silber having regular meeting on how to extract more from our family?
Our family was about to sell three of our waterfront lots and an investment home, that would have brought in aprox $300.000.00. Jim Marks said don't do it, put it in the JV and we will do much better later with him in control. So we trusted Marks with everything including the check book. We thought he was our friend and would managed and protect us but boy were we dead wrong.
HOW WAS AMANDA SIGLER INVOLVED? Was Amanda Sigler (a local real estate agent) feeding Jim Marks our personal information as she to befriended our family? Did she assist in taking personal property from an investment property without due process. The plan may have been set up from the very beginning to get control of everything we had. How much did Amanda gain? It is clear now that because we were elderly and easily conned and we had a big target on our backs called equity. We were steered by Mr Marks right into what I now believe was nothing more than family of Predatory Lenders.
They tricked me and my family by saying that they could rescue us from a foreclosure but all we got was more flipped loans, prepayment penalties, fees, and high interest rates. All designed to extract equity and get control of our lives. They eventually forced us into a foreclosures, but always stood by with another big loan with additional high cost in order to get them to stop their foreclosures. I think Barry had clauses in the loan agreement that took huge attorney fees if he had to foreclose. He foreclosed and we paid him, stripping more equity from our land. We were trapped.
SETTING THE TRAP: We were forced to meet after hours at their LINEAR CAPITIAL offices in TAMPA to sign more rushed document that we did not really understand. Was this a typical BAIT AND SWITCH? or was the intent to just beat us down? I am very sure that they did not want others to see what they were doing so they had to get us in after hours. (e.s.) We had many questions as documents are being brought to us for signing but Jim Marks was always standing right by our side saying don't worry I got your back and would never let you sign anything that would hurt you or your family. Document were changed for hours by the lawyer/ lender Barry Silber as he re-did document, was this the bait and switch? We were taken out of the room several times and were brought back in when new doc were ready for us to sign. Please note that these two men owned one or more of the Title Company, The Real Estate Company, The Mortgage company and we thought they were the attorneys for everything including the corporation that was created for us.
We did not want to sign anything but we were up against the wall and the mortgages that they gave us were all due again. They took a years worth of payments up front that night and paid themselves many fees. Now we had a new giant mortgage on our home that was due in one year it also had a rider that would take away all our rights to the JV that controlled all our Families properties if we didn't’ pay them back over $500.000.00 within that one year.
We told Marks that we can't pay this loan back and he said don't worry we will sell something in the JV to pay this off or refinance you or the corporation at better rates. We believed that the lawyer Silber would protect our family but we were dead wrong about that too. We now know that the lawyer involved was Mr Mark’s distant relative by marriage who stood to gain a great deal of money if we failed. I believe that this man Barry Silber should be disbarred and put in jail. We were set up to fail because after many months of Jim Marks infiltration into our family, they knew everything about us and our family and knew we had good equity to take.
SILBERS ETHICAL DUTY: It was Silber duty to not let this kind of thing to happen to anyone but was he after our land and equity as was Mr Marks from the very beginning? Barry Silber was also part of the company that gave us one or more of the mortgages. Before that year was up Barry Silber started foreclosure on our home and then said that they could not lend any more money. They got control of the land and the corporation (RSI LLC) via the attached default to our mortgage and started to sell everything. All our future income was now in their hands. What is astounding is that our Mortgage on our home is now over $ 1 million dollars. They sold several of our residential properties and took most of the cash without our permission. How did this happen and when will they be prosecuted?
THE SUCKERS: How did we allow some one to take all our families properties? First: We allowed Jim Marks in because he had all the answers to many problems we had and he was saving us from a foreclosure. We eventually trusted Jim Marks completely as a friend and business partner. But now we see that he was clearly working his way into our family and eventually found out every aspect of our assets and liabilities so that he could make his move and set the trap. Second: We were not very smart with our finances. Third: We were not smart enough to see the scam because we were blinded by his promises and trusted him because he said he could handle everything properly.
Now we see that they were all very smart men and we were conned over and over again into trusting a family of hard money predatory lenders who had one motivation and that was to milk us of all our equity by what ever means possible. We all feel very bad because we let this happen to our families holdings. We believe that state and federal laws have been broken AND WE HAVE BEEN IN CONTACT WITH EVERY AGENCY POSSIBLE Including our Governor SEEKING JUSTICE. FROM LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT TO THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN. WE ARE ALSO FILING COMPLANTES WITH THE FLA BAR AND OTHER AGENCYS THAT CONTROL THE LIC OF THESE MEN IN THE HOPE THAT JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED. Law enforcement and media take notice…We would like others to give their own story about these people or like kind cases.
The KILL SHOT: This was the last statement from Mr Marks, He strongly advised us that we should quick claim our home to his wife's relatives to avoid another foreclosure. So Don't ever fall for someone trying to rescue you with a hand of friendship. Report Predatory lenders and Mortgage fraud abuse to everyone. Expose these people when found.
Put them in jail if crimes have been committed I can tell all of you that this web site has helped in several ways. Keep it going
Comment posted January 19, 2010 @ 2:09 pm
Short sale and REO flipping is actually a VERY legitimate practice, and with proper DISCLOSURES, is completely legal and completely ethical.
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Comment posted January 19, 2010 @ 7:09 pm
Short sale and REO flipping is actually a VERY legitimate practice, and with proper DISCLOSURES, is completely legal and completely ethical.
I, personally, have in my possession, letters from Banks allowing me to flip their properties for profit.
There are SOME people out there doing the wrong thing…but THEY ARE FEW AND FAR BETWEEN!!
GROW UP and accept that not everything profitable is WRONG!!!
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