Home Alone: Home Mortgage Foreclosure Rescue Scams and the Theft of Equity

Abstract:     
Mortgage foreclosures caused by predatory lending and subprime mortgages seem to garner front page headlines on a daily basis. Greedy mortgage brokers, greedy banks, greedy investors, and financially illiterate consumers all share some blame for this crisis. However, the Mortgage Foreclosure Rescue Scam (MFRS) has caused a crisis of its own for decades. This article describes how MFRS works. It gives a detailed account of an actual victim of MFRS and proposes several solutions to prevent the scam, when the elderly are its target.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 23

Keywords: mortgages, fraud, foreclosure, scams, mortgage foreclosure rescue scam, consumer protection

JEL Classification: K11, K40

Accepted Paper Series