Loan Scam Alert!

By Raymond Stoklosa · March 21st, 2008

Loan Scam Alert
It’s back! We’ve heard reports that the old “lender servicing scam” has been showing up lately and it works like this.

A home owner with a mortgage loan receives an official looking letter instructing him or her to direct all future mortgage payments to a new loan servicing agent. (A loan servicer is an entity that collects payments and monitors the borrower performance for the lender who owns the loan.) The letter looks like it comes from the borrower’s current mortgage holder with all the familiar logos, symbols, jargon and lawyer-like syntax. It states that your loan has been sold and your payments are henceforth to be sent to a new servicer at a new address or PO Box.

But it’s bogus. You sent your mortgage payments straight to the scammer. Oh yes, from your current lender’s vantage point, you have not made your mortgage payment and you’re in arrears. Have you heard of the term “default?”

With the sub-prime fiasco deepening and the mortgage lending crisis becoming more wide-spread, we are seeing all sorts of changes in the world of home loans. Change creates chaos. Chaos means disorder and disorder opens the door for the scam artists, grifters and predators to exploit the ignorant and the ill-informed. So, what do you do if you receive a letter ordering you to send your mortgage payment to someone else? Here are some tips.

If you receive instructions to redirect you mortgage payments:

Call your current lender and verify with their loan servicing department. Don’t call any numbers that appear on the letter. Do call the contact telephone number on your loan coupon.
If you can’t find a number to call, call the mortgage broker who you worked through to get the loan. They can help.
If it all checks out, then call the new servicer and confirm the details and directions. If your loan has been legitimately sold, you’ll get one letter from your old servicer and another from your new servicer with matching details.

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