Oregon Public Broadcasting

More than 500 real estate professionals gathered at the Oregon Convention Center Wednesday to learn how unscrupulous lenders are scamming homeowners. Kristian Foden-Vencil reports.

The symposium was organized by Oregon Attorney General, John Kroger. He says the state is suffering from a significant amount of mortgage fraud and foreclosure relief fraud.

John Kroger: "We've had incidents where people have been told. You'll qualify for a 1.9 percent interest rate. All you have to do is give us $3,000 up front and we'll negotiate for you. People are falling for those scams and they need to be very careful about them."

The state just released its top 10 list of consumer complaints and for the first time, home ownership lending complaints were included.

People who are refinancing are advised to check with the Oregon Department of Justice, which recently put its data base of consumer complaints on line.

Customers are also advised to check any documents they sign -- they may contain different figures than they were told orally.

http://www.doj.state.or.us/finfraud/mortgage_fraud.shtml