Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Mortgage Audits: A Continuing Sign of the Times

I received a shady letter in the mail today. The return address is a P.O. Box in Utah and the the following is included just above the name in my mailing address.

RE: MORTGAGE AUDIT

It goes on to "inform" me that I may be owed a refund of several thousand dollars.

March 2010
Forensic Mortgage Loan Audit Scams: A New Twist on Foreclosure Rescue Fraud

Fraudulent foreclosure “rescue” professionals use half-truths and outright lies to sell services that promise relief to homeowners in distress. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation’s consumer protection agency, the latest foreclosure rescue scam to exploit financially strapped homeowners pitches forensic mortgage loan audits.

I turned bearish in 2004 based on mortgage offers I was receiving in the mail. Guess what? I'm still bearish.

On a brighter note, mortgage audit jobs seem to be picking up and that can only mean one thing about the prospects of economic growth heading forward.


So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice. - Carl Spackler, Caddyshack (1980)

Yeah, that's right. It's a Bill Murray two-fer . Woohoo! Sigh.

6 comments:

mab said...

Stag,

Do you have any idea how dangerous your thinking is? I'll give you a hint: it threatens the stability of the debt ponzi scheme - our way of life!

Still bearish, bah! Come on, we need less cynicism and more gullibility. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to push counter-productive, fraudulent and extractive debt on a well informed and cynical society? Even the best and the brightest can't do that. What's a rentier to do?

What would you have bankers and other financial scammers do - productive lending? The margins on productive lending are tiny! NFW! Mega Wall St. payouts (the engine of our eCONomy!) come from shams!

We need to get shams and sham credit flowing again. Sham credit is good, Government debt is bad. Bad, bad, bad. Really f@%#ing bad. Just ask Japan about what happens when the bond vigilantes show up. Mish and Denninger can tell ya. They know!

What ever you do, don't ever forget the golden rule of extractive finance - we can only use Gov't debt for bailouts of the wealthy and welfare.

Stagflationary Mark said...

mab,

Today only!

Buy one sham at the regular price and get a second sham free! Just pay separate sham processing and shipping!

100% guarantee! If for some reason you don't fully enjoy both shams then send them back for a full sham refund. (Less sham processing and shipping and sham processing and shipping.)

MaxedOutMama said...

See, if only you were willing to sell your TIPS and buy oil, the recovery would work. It's the craven lack of optimism that you demonstrate that is ruining this trade for Goldman Sachs.

GawainsGhost said...

Most of these mortgage auditors are former mortgage brokers, a gangly lot of unlicensed, unregulated confidence men.

Need a loan to buy an overpriced house? I'll make some phone calls, find a lender, charge you 2%, and wait for the next greater fool.

Now, they're pretending to clean up the mess they made. It never ends.

I've had to deal with several of these people over the years, particularly during the mid-00s. They're all idiots. Most of them went out of business when the bubble burst. I guess they found another con to run.

Stagflationary Mark said...

MaxedOutMama,

I slept through all the excitement.

Your comment made me immediately check out the price of oil to see what I was missing.

Oil down big.
Stocks down big.
TIPS up big.
Cash untrashed.

Stagflationary Mark said...

GawainsGhost,

Most of these mortgage auditors are former mortgage brokers, a gangly lot of unlicensed, unregulated confidence men.

I very nearly shared the following link in my original post.

Forensic Mortgage Audit is the New Scam Targeting Homeowners

Many of the firms offering this type of service are most likely reincarnated loan modification frauds with a new name or they are out of work mortgage brokers working from their kitchen tables.