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Foreclosure Rescue Scams (and a fake HUD Website)

The Oregon State Bar (OSB), Winter 2009 issue of the Debtor-Creditor Section newsletter (online only to section members) has a sobering article by Oregon attorney Terrance J. Slominski:

?Foreclosure Rescuers: Good Samaritans or Scam Artists?? with a description of 4 categories of foreclosure scams, including: Sale-Leasback, Equity Stripping, Loan Modification, and Stealing the Home.

These sound harmless enough, don?t they? Beware. Please talk to an attorney who is qualified and experienced in creditor-debtor matters if you have serious financial problems.

Also, a recent fake HUD (U.S. Dept of Housing and Urban Development) website appeared, as a phishing expedition, and you can be sure it will be back, in different clothing. The fake website was: http://bailout dot hud-gov dot us

Don?t Click On Links in Email Messages, unless you can trust the source - and no, no, no - email messages forwarded from your mother and ?best friends? are NOT trusted sources of email links, unless they are to baby pictures, and I'm not sure about those either (trusting soul, aren't I?)

And, because just about everything reminds me of a book or a joke, speaking of scams and schemes, remember Arthur Leff?s classic ?Swindling and Selling? (here?s a review), which is no longer in print, sadly, so second-hand copies are getting expensive (see, e.g. alibris and amazon).

Full post as published by Oregon Legal Research on March 20, 2009 (boomark / email).