Inland Empire - Mortgage Fraud Help.

I just saw this new group and wanted to reach and and tap the members. I'm sure many of you have been victimized or had clients preyed upon by mortgage fraud scams when our market was rolling. In Murrieta we had one outfit - Stonewood Financial - who pulled off over 120 of these scams where they would come in offering 100,000+ over asking price with the overage going to a third party - namely themselves. Over 120 at 100,000 each - you do the math. Another agent, whose company was headquartered in Ontario, pulled off more than 70 of these just in our area - we don't know how widespread he was throughout the region.

The cost to our markets in terms of foreclosures, inflated property values, credit and home loss to individuals and the subsequent revenue loss to our cities and county as hundreds of foreclosures sit vacant and unsold is incredible. So the Southwest Riverside County Association of Realtors (Temecula, Murrieta & Lake Elsinore) has joined with the Inland Valley Association of Realtors (Greater Riverside) to form a Fraud Task Force. We are meeting with Rod Pacheco, Riverside District Attorney this Friday and making the first of many powerpoint presentations to the City of Murrieta next week.

We are in the process of gathering information on mortgage fraud, foreclosure fraud and elder abuse through fraudulent reverse mortgages. If you have knowledge of this type of scam in your area, or you are aware of something going on that just smells a little fishy, please share it with our group. Your input will be strictly confidential. To date we have had limited success in getting local law enforcement, our DA, the DRE or FBI involved, although they are very involved in other states around the country (see mortgagefraudblog.com). The DRE finally pulled the brokers license from Stonewood last year, 2 1/2 years after we started documenting this fraud to the authorities.

Please help us shine the light on the practitioners that are giving our industry a bad name and that are costing our clients, lenders and cities millions. Thanks.