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ShortRefiNow.com,
of Roseville, California, has been labeled by The Better Business
Bureau as a scam. Having received numerous complaints of shoddy
service, non performance, and no refunds, the BBB issued the scam
warning on March 31st. The California Department of Real
Estate issued a Desist and Refrain order in February because the
company lacked proper licensing to perform loan modifications. The
order came along too late for Kris Pinckney who gave ShortRefiNow.com
$3,000 for her loan modification but kept getting non
answers and the runaround. When she asked her lender whether they had
spoken to anyone at ShortRefiNow.com, the answer she got was that they
had received one call to ask how they did refi’s. She did get a partial
refund from the company.
While unfortunate, these scams are avoidable. Detecting
and avoiding loan modification scams is a relatively simple task if a
person knows what to look for and where to find it. By combining that
knowledge with a little time to conduct some due diligence, a homeowner
can virtually eliminate the possibility of being scammed. The first
priority is to insist on working with an attorney to execute the loan modification.
Getting some background information is an easy task. Get the attorney’s
State Bar number. Ask whether the attorney will be representing you or
the law office. Find out how long the office has been doing loan
modifications and how many have been successfully executed.
Behind
the scenes, many of the companies scamming their customers are also
running smear campaigns against reputable, licensed firms with long
lists of successful loan modifications. Steven Feldman of The Feldman
Law Center was recently a target just such an attack. He stated in a
recent interview, “When we
started helping home owners avoid foreclosure with loan modifications
there were just a few attorneys in the entire country providing this
service. Now I think there are more loan mod companies and newbie
attorneys doing loan mod’s than there are McDonald’s across the
country.” Commenting on the attempted character assassinations on some
of the sites being used as tools of lesser companies he said, “It’s
amusing to me that these people even exist. It wasn’t until the Feldman
Law Center assisted in shutting down these companies doing loan
modification scams that these unfounded allegations hit the internet. I
have been an attorney for 30 years and just can’t believe what I read
these days.”
One thing is for certain. ShortRefiNow.com
will not be the last loan modification company to be shut down for
nonperformance. There are certainly others out there that will operate
in the same fashion and eventually get shut down. The key is to avoid
them in the first place. It can be easily done by taking some time to
look behind the curtain to find out whether the firm being considered
is honest, reputable, and will get the job done.
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