Suffering from foreclosure scams

Elias Escobedo, 41, lost his house earlier this month when it was foreclosed on, but not because he didn’t pay his mortgage.

Instead, he’s the victim of a real estate agent who is accused of forging the deed to his home and embezzling $40,000 in a scheme to raise his credit score and pay his monthly mortgage payments, according to the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s office.

Mortgage and foreclosure fraud is growing. According to the FBI 2007 Mortgage Fraud Report, suspicious activity reports grew 31 percent to 46,717 in 2007. The 1,204 mortgage fraud cases pursued in fiscal year 2007, which ended Sept. 30, resulted in 321 indictments and court orders for $595.9 million in restitution. In the Bay Area, counties are ranked by mortgage fraud with Santa Clara being the highest and then followed by Alameda and Contra Costa counties. The regional FBI office declined to release any further statistics.”*

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