The attorney general in Arizona continues to fight off those scamming homeowners out of their homes. For the longest time scams have been driven by the number of homeowners that continue to be late on their mortgage payments. The scammers find an official listing of notices that were sent out to those that have fallen behind on their payments. They draw up documents that are official, but are not typically read by the homeowner. They show up at their doorstep offering their help.

The scammers show the homeowners their paperwork and explain that they will help them if they will sign the paperwork. Then the homeowner soon finds out that they just signed over their title to the scammer and will either rent from them or move out. Since this became a well known scam the scheme had to change. Now they offer help without documentation. They claim they are in the mortgage field and can help them keep their home by calling their lender and working out a plan for them. There’s a catch of course. The scammers ask for money upfront. They say in order to offer help they will need a fee which is anywhere in the $1200 range.

The homeowners need to ask questions in order to determine if this person is for real or not. No person working with an organization to help homeowners will show up at their doorstep therefore, 100 percent of people that do this is a scam artist. They will also not call the homeowner on the phone. They expect the homeowners to contact them. Ask where the person worked last. This will give an indication that there is something not right about the situation. Ask for credentials and references as well as licenses that they have to do this kind of work. Then ask them to leave so that you can call the list of people and/or companies they have listed. Chances are they will not have anything to present. There have been cases where the scammer was caught and was living out of their own car. The attorney general in Arizona states that he wants to put these scammers out of business. Since Arizona has one of the largest numbers of foreclosures it seems to be a great place for scammers to trick homeowners into giving them their property and/or their money.