The Federal Trade Commission has banned eight individuals and companies from selling foreclosure rescue services and ordered them to return $29.2 million in fees that they collected from distressed homeowners under the guise of rescuing their home from foreclosure. The following companies and individuals have been sanctioned by the FTC:
- Steven Oscherowitz, and the firm he is affiliated with, Federal Loan Modification Law Center have been banned from selling foreclosure rescue services.
- Loss Mitigation Services and Direct Lender, Dean Shafer, Marion Anthony “Tony” Perry and Bernadette Perry who are both affiliated with the company have been banned from selling foreclosure rescue services.
- Salvatore and Nicholas Puglia, Hope Now Modifications and Hope Now Financial Services Corp. have been banned from selling foreclosure rescue services.
While the FTC has levied a $29.2 million judgment against these companies and individuals over $11 million has been suspended because of some of the individuals’ inability to pay. Unfortunately, this will mean that many of the foreclosure “rescue” victims will not receive all of their money back. It is also unfortunate that these individuals involved in this scam have not received prison terms. It is obvious from the names the companies used that their intention was to deceive the customer into believing that they were somehow connected with the federal government. By using official sounding names or names that sounded similar to government foreclosure prevention programs, these scam artists were able to gain the trust of desperate homeowners facing foreclosure and defraud them of their hard earned money. It is important for homeowners to approach these companies with caution and to remember that government websites are always “.gov” not “.com” nor “.net,” etc.