I received a letter in the mail from Federal Housing Aid in Las Vegas, Nevada. The letter claimed that they could help me because my home was in foreclosure and that they could advance me up to 50,000 within 72 hours with no charge, no credit check and no obligation. They stressed the urgency, said they could help stop the auction, help save my credit and help me keep my home. I have received several of these types of letters and usually throw them in the garbage. I fell behind on my mortgage because I work a straight commission job in the housing industry and with the chaos in the housing industry, I did not have a paycheck for about 4 months. I have worked at my job for 6 years and have never went without a paycheck for one month, let alone 4! I also lost my child support and my children's heath insurance at the same time. I started struggling with my house payments late last year and tried to make an agreement to make up payments with my lender. I made double payments on both of my mortgages in Dec. to get caught up and thought I was on the right path! I was supposed to make double payments again in Jan and Feb to get caught up. I thought the worst was behind me after getting caught up in my bills in December, but instead it had only just begun! The next three months I would get no paychecks and then one small one on the fourth month, followed by another pay period without one. At this point just keeping my utilities on and food and gas to get to work was a struggle! A notice of default was filed on my home at the end of February. This letter arrives in the mail and I am skeptical, but out of curiousity I decide to call them. The person I spoke with did not mention anything about advancing me money nor was it a service of no charge! The woman explained to me that they would negiotiate with my lender to save my home and I qualified, etc. etc. I knew that this was not sounding right and was waiting for the hidden fees, which came up soon after. She told me that I would have to pay $899 for this service. She urged me to pay it that day so I could avoid losing my home and I was running out of time. I told her I had no money that day, I was simply inquiring on what my options were. She continued to press me for money. I told her I didn't have one. She asked for a postdated check, I said no, I can't do that because I don't know when I will have the money, I have no guaranteed paycheck. She asked me for a credit card. I again told her I didn't have one, I mean come on, if I had available credit would I be in this situation? She said she would email me some information, a working agreement that I would need to sign to get things started. I would then of course need to sign and fax it back and make a payment to get things started. Again, she told me I must hurry or they would not be able to help me. She asked me some more questions and asked if I had a debit card that I could give her. She assured me that it would not be charged until I read and signed the paperwork, faxed it back and then called them to authorize my payment. She said that until then they couldn't do anything. I should have never gave her my debit card information, but telling her I had no money in the bank and knowing I didn't, I guess I wasn't too worried about someone taking money that didn't exist anyway. So... a couple of weeks came and went and my next payday came and I did not get paid. I did not have any money to do anything, so I did not talk to her again. She called and left messages on my cell phone and at my office and emailed me, but I did not respond as I was busy and after all, there was no point since I had no money to even consider this at the time. After about two weeks or so from talking to her that first and only time, I logged on to my bank account to see that $450 had come out of my checking account to buypayments.com, plus a $9 foreign bank fee. I had no idea what this could be! I didn't even think of this company or this woman at the time, I just knew that I had not bought anything, did any transactions or anything in the past few days or weeks and I was shocked to see this transaction. Having no money in there from the time I talked to her until the 8th of April when the money was taken from my account, I have no idea how many times my debit card may have been tried to run through and denied. April 7th my husband received an advance from his employer, so that I could make our two vehicles payments. We were still barely hanging on to those. I deposited the money and took the payment out for his vehicle and went and paid it that day. The remainder of the money had to cover our power bill that had been already paid by a check, and I had to make a partial payment on my auto by the 9th to prevent repossession and before 5 p.m. I got on the bank account to see how much money there was and it was all gone! The power bill was returned and the $450 debit had been charged, overdraft fees, returned check fees and a foreign bank fee! Now my power bill had bounced and my car payment would not get made either! I contacted buypayments.com only to discover they are in Australia and they said they tried to call me to verify the transaction, but couldn't get ahold of me. So they went ahead anyway, I asked? I told them I didn't make this transaction or any transaction on that day and they said they would look into it and get back to me in 72 hours to refund my money would take 1-2 weeks! My husband was furious and I was dumbfounded! I finally realized that it could only be this woman at Federal Housing Aid. I emailed her and asked if she was the one that debited my account. I received no reply. When I got off work, I talked to my husband and we finally figured out that this is the place that took our money. I called her and talked to her but all she did was lie to me! She told me there was a miscommunication, which there was not! I know fully well what was said in that conversation word for word. I began arguing with her and then she said it was a processing fee and again I told her she was lying because I never authorized it and she knew it! I never signed the papers, sent them back or called to authorize payment! She continued to play her stupid act and I completely lost my temper and said I just want my money back and I want it back now! After screaming at her and totally losing my temper, she finally said she would fax me a refund form.
I said it better be there by the morning and hung up on her! During the call I asked numerous times to talk to her supervisor or someone in charge over her and she refused! I asked the person in accounting who I initially gave my complaint to that I needed to talk to a supervisor. He asked if I wanted her extension and I said No, I do not want to talk to her, I want her supervisor. Instead he put me through to her directly, which infuriated me and then her lying about the whole thing infuriated me more and when I asked for a supervisor repeatedly, she would not transfer me to anyone. She faxed me the refund form the next day and emailed me to say "we had an agreement" and so and and so forth. Which we DID NOT! I emailed her back and reminded her of what took place and that she lied to me! The refund form said if I sign it and send it back it will take up to 30 days! I realized I did not want to sign a refund form agreeing to take 30 days because this money was taken without my permission! Stolen from me! Filling that out would just cooberate her lie that we had an agreement, so I refused. I emailed her to tell her to get me in touch with her supervisor. She did not reply. My husband then called her. She lied to him as well and continued to maintain that we had an agreement. By the first night the money was taken, I began researching this and found out a report on the consumer law center's website which detailed foreclosure fraud and talked about companies exactly like this who did things exactly like they did to strip you of your equity and run up bogus charges for doing little to nothing! And the biggest warning is they say don't talk to your lender and let the clock run out on you, so your home is foreclosed. During my husbands phone conversation with her she said she was only trying to help us save our house. He asked her then why would you tell us not to contact our lender? She sat there silent for a minute or two and then hung up on him! Now why would a legitimate business hang up when asked
a simple question any logical person should think to ask?
My husband had an earlier conversation with her, where he asked her to have a supervisor call him to refund our money and she promised to, but no one ever did. Now my husband emailed her and told her we wanted our money back and that they fit the profile of the foreclosure scams in the report we read to a tee! She did not reply. No one has called us back from Federal Housing Aid or from Buypayments.com where I just left another phone message today. I called Federal Housing Aid and asked for the Quality Control Dept. and they told me they weren't in on weekends! We informed them that we wanted our money back, plus the bank charges and we would not sign a refund form that would authorize them to cancel an agreement we never had! After reading the consumer fraud alert report, my heart breaks to think of the thousands of homeowners they have targeted right here in Nevada! I was born and raised in this state and I care about the people of my state, as well as across the nation! The $450 they took from us was not a lot, but in our present situation, it meant that our power bill bounced, I did not get my car payment sent on time and have no idea what will happen now and in addition I am at home with my three children, with no gas money, no money for food and will have to wait for 8 more days before I even have a paycheck! I don't know what I am going to do but I think of our loss as a small one compared to the people they have probably took much more from. We never signed the agreement, so we don't know how much money they would have stolen from us if we had! I am thinking of others that are in a desperate situation and they are taking advantage of those people. Those people who have no money and are losing their homes and they are taking as much money as they can from them! And then these people lose their homes anyway! I am appalled to think that this is going on in our own State and because I work in the housing industry, I know the major impact that this housing crisis is causing all of us. I know that people out there are in a much more desperate situation than even we are in! I cannot stand the thought of those people being victimized by this company or others like it and I believe they needed to be identified and investigated to stop what they are doing to desperate homeowners facing foreclosure! The foreclosure crisis is front page news everyday in this country and what needs to be front page news is also these type of people who are stealing and ripping off the desperate and the hopeless who do not know any better. My husband and I seen through the scam immediately, so our loss is minimal in relation to others I am sure, but each document they sent me contradicted the next and the email she wrote said, I had to sign and fax the paperwork before moving forward. In the agreement it says they charge $100 an hour for their services, so I would never sign it and in the email it says don't worry about the other charges listed in the contract, the only fee to you is $899! I knew right away what a scam it was! Today I checked my voicemail only to disover that someone in the quality control department had called and left me two messages on the 8th and 9th asking me to call back and give them permission to debit my card and verify my information. I did neither and they charged my card anyway without my authorization at all! It was neither given verbally and recorded nor were they given written authorization of any kind, as I never signed a thing! I hope that the media will address this issue and warn all home owners in Nevada of this company and their scam! This needs to be stopped! People who prey on the desperate and desolute are the most vial kind of criminal. I hope this message will reach many others to stop this company from doing this in our own State!
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