When given the opportunity, criminals will target whom they perceive as the weakest among us. And that notion could become even more apparent as Utah and the nation cope with the bursting of the real estate and economic bubbles.
The Salt Lake office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Utah Division of Real Estate have compiled a list of the potential top five mortgage related rip-offs in 2010. Chief among them: a reverse mortgage scam targeting the elderly.
“Scam artists are always looking for new ways to reinvent the same crime,” said Michelle Pickens, special agent and mortgage fraud coordinator with the FBI. “The reverse mortgage scam is based off the ’straw buyer’ model where they use senior citizens … against their own mortgages.”
Reverse mortgages can be a legitimate way for homeowners to take equity from their homes without a monthly payment, which can be especially useful to seniors who need supplemental income during retirement, she said.
Unfortunately, con artists sometimes convince seniors they can live in a home for free, obtain a home loan under the occupant’s name and disappear with the equity, while leaving the victim to repay the mortgage.
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