The growing number of fraudulent bank foreclosed homes rescue schemes in Florida has become a thorny issue, especially among political candidates. Attorney General Bill McCollum, who is a candidate for governorship in Florida, admitted that neither his office nor the state has done enough to stop mortgage fraud from destroying the lives of many distressed homeowners. So far, there were over 50,000 cases of identified illegal real estate deals in Florida. McCollum blamed his office’s limited jurisdiction and lack of resources for the failure to stop fraudulent bank foreclosed homes rescue schemes.He said that both the state and his office do not have enough people trained to perform investigations on criminal mortgage fraud, thus stopping fraudulent activities in the future may be impossible.Mortgage fraud falls under white-collar crime which requires well-trained personnel to conduct investigations. McCollum said that only a handful of police agencies in both state and local levels have people who could perform white-collar undercover investigations.The state attorney general do not have the authority to file criminal charges but he can conduct investigations on fraudulent bank foreclosed homes rescue schemes, bring attention to the issue and coordinate enforcement efforts across Florida.In 2007, McCollum established a task force to go after unscrupulous people. But he admitted that his office failed to focus on the growing mortgage flipping fraud cases because of other consumer protection issues that swamped his office.Since it was setup in 2007, the task force had filed only 14 civil lawsuits against mortgage fraudsters and is currently investigating 81 cases, a fraction of what is reported to be over $10 billion worth of illegal deals.McCollum argued that his office cannot do everything. Since he took office in 2007, his main focus has been cybercrime and preventing sexual predators from victimizing children on the Internet.But industry experts noted that most of the task force’s efforts and lawsuits filed were focused on companies offering bogus foreclosure prevention schemes and not on illegal mortgage flipping.Fraudulent mortgage flipping increased during the peak of the housing market, with about $10 billion worth of shady deals suspected in Florida alone.McCollum said that during the campaign, he will continue to highlight efforts of his office to go after fraudulent bank foreclosed homes rescue schemes, but added that people would prefer to hear more about job creation and economic recovery.
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Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum admitted that neither his office nor the state has done enough to stop fraudulent bank foreclosed homes rescue schemes from destroying the lives of many distressed homeowners. He blamed the limited jurisdiction and lack of resources over the failure to stop mortgage fraud.
Joseph Smith has been educating buyers on the finer points of Properties for Sale at BankForeclosuresSale .com for over five years.
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