So this morning I was reading MSN while I was waiting for classes to start, and I noticed an article on foreclosure fraud. As you know, America's economy has been failing lately, and not in the epic way. Some of the things I read in that article really scared me in conjunction with the discussion we had with our band teacher about the current situation. He said that in our town we've had over twelve hundred foreclosures this YEAR. Not only that, I could only imagine how many of those fell victim to foreclosure fraud. It's risen 700% in the past five years, and that no doubt means there are a handful of cases in the area I live.

In said article, they mentioned that a common tactic for companies that specialize in foreclosure fraud put signs like 'we buy houses' or 'cash for your house, upfront' on roadsides, with little other information other than a phone number, not to mention late night commercials. They also tend to make you sign contracts, something brokers don't usually do. Naturally, people aren't always aware of this and can easily fall into the intricate traps that companies set up, and while laws are clamping down on some techniques, these people aren't stupid. They'll always find out new ways to fuck your shit up.

The thing that really creeped me out wasa that I read John Grisham's The Rainmaker over the summer (lawyers ftw, amirite?), and the whole thing going on in there was so scarily similar to the whole foreclosure fraud thing that it was terrifying. I mean, it was insurance fraud, to be sure, but they were exact down to the very fine details! Foreclosure and insurance are two very different things; it seems strange that their respective subjects of fraud would have anything in common.

For anybody interested, here's the article.
redtape.msnbc.com/2008/09/post.html