Sunday, June 29, 2008

Mortgage Payment Fraud Alert

A new scam has started to appear regarding loan payments. As many of you know, when you get a home loan, the loan is often sold to a servicing company. This allows the lender to recoup the money they loaned you and lend it to someone else. Once the loan is sold, you make your payments to the loan servicer, not the original lender.

Recently, some borrowers have been receiving letters informing them that their loan has been sold and they are to send all future loan payments to the new servicer. The problem is, the loan was not sold. So the unsuspecting borrower sends their loan payment to the new address. A couple of months go by and they receive a letter from the real lender telling them that their loan is in default. The borrower tries to contact the "servicer" only to find that they have closed up shop and have moved on to a new state and new name. The borrower now is out the money they sent to the crooks, and has late fees on their loan.

In an attempt to stop this fraud, lenders have set up a protocol for the transfer of a loan. Two letters are now sent - one from your lender telling you they have sold the loan, one from the servicer telling you they are now taking over the loan. If you receive a letter telling you your loan has been sold, you should contact your original lender to verify that they have, in fact, sold the loan.

No comments: