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Scams have been going on since Og realized he could swindle Ooga out of his rock.
1 replies
Scams have been going on since Og realized he could swindle Ooga out of his rock.
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Other scams to watch out for:
The \"Balloon\" payment loan
\"Interest Only\" loans.
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@Billy Gillispie Halftime Interview:
\"They're annoying, tricky, and can be sold deceptively...\"
May I have your definition of a scam then?
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@B: Balloon payment loans aren't a scam, and neither are interest only loans. They're annoying, and tricky, and can be sold deceptively, but they're by no means a scam in and of themselves.
/have a balloon loan
//at least until I complete my refinance in a week or two
///$350 closing costs FTW.
Once again, how do elderly people get to be old and have anything at all left to their names, if they're so gullible they fall for scams?
@Trencher93: I think it has to do with diminishing mental capacity as they get older, and also with over-medication of our elderly. Yeah, they're wiser, but that doesn't mean they're all as quick-witted as we blog-reading whippersnappers.
The only issue with #1 is... nobody's buying houses. And wouldn't most people look at a house first before buying it?
Granted, the fraudster still has the deed, but he may screw himself up if he can't sell the house.
@BuddyGuyMontag: You're forgetting that the Fraudster acquires the deed to the house for FREE. He doesn't need a competitive market price for the house. He scams some payments for his \"services\" from the homeowner, then sell the house to someone else for whatever he can get for it. He can sell it for pennies on the dollar (of whatever equity is in the house to sell), and still make SOMETHING off of it.
@B
Don't forget the biggest scam of all, Adjustable Rate Mortgages.
I was expecting to see \"pay thousands of dollars to a company to have them renegotiate your loan with the mortgage company, only to have the loan go into foreclosure anyway after they don't do anything but make a couple of phone calls.\" Working in collections i see this all the time. \"How much money do you have on hand? Yeah, our fee will be about 80% of that. Sign this authorization and we'll handle everything.\" Three months later the mortgager calls in and the loan's in foreclosure, the company hasn't made but a token effort to work with the lender, and the mortgager is out a hefty chunk of change that could go to their past due loan. Yes, there are legitimate companies out there and they're not all blatant scammers... but even the best of them doesn't do anything you couldn't do yourself.
balloon loans can be used as a tool for good. For example it helped us avoid PMI for not having 20% down and then 2 months later when we sold my mother's house we paid it off in full.
Sure they jacked the interest up on us at closing, but since we knew we'd be paying it off in full soon it wasn't a big deal.
Dangerous...but not a scam.
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Big news story lately was the Trump Condos in Mexico that went nowhere after people spent hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Builder Bail-out Fraud to the max
\"ARMs\" are scams? \"Interest Only\" are scams?
No, both serve fantastic purposes when used well.
If you're not planning on being in a house for five years, you're being scammed if you're NOT offered an ARM.
The first two years you're in a straight 30-year fixed, you don't even pay down two percent of equity in your house - you're paying NEARLY interest only anyway. So, if you're not planning on being in the house a long time, and you can get better rates by going interest only... There's no danger there. There's also no danger in a rising market... But as we've seen if you're OVERextended to begin with, this is a bad option in a sinking market. But owning the same house with a straight mortgage would also be bad in the same market, if you're overextended...
\"ARMs\" are scams? \"Interest Only\" are scams?
No, both serve fantastic purposes when used well.
If you're not planning on being in a house for five years, you're being scammed if you're NOT offered an ARM.
The first two years you're in a straight 30-year fixed, you don't even pay down two percent of equity in your house - you're paying NEARLY interest only anyway. So, if you're not planning on being in the house a long time, and you can get better rates by going interest only... There's no danger there. There's also no danger in a rising market... But as we've seen if you're OVERextended to begin with, this is a bad option in a sinking market. But owning the same house with a straight mortgage would also be bad in the same market, if you're overextended...
Wow, did everyone replying to other \"scams\" lose their sense of humor or something?
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..ahh america 2.0