Last winter Ann Marie Villnuve spent a lot of time on the phone with her lender. She had been late on her mortgage, but then sent multiple payments and had the receipts to prove it. But J.P. Morgan Chase told her she was still behind and filed for foreclosure. That's when Villnuve went looking for help.
Ann Marie Villnuve: Any kind of impending foreclosure help. If anybody was out there that could maybe work with the mortgage company.
She received a letter from a local firm called PSMH. She called and got in touch with a Jim Van Putten who offered help. Villnuve paid him $650.
Ann Marie Villnuve: I got a notice of a hearing and I called him and said, 'Well, do I have to be there?' And he said 'No, don't worry about it. Our attorneys will handle it for you. You do not have to show up.' Well I didn't. And the court filed the judgement. Against me.
Saito: Did their attorneys show up?
Villnuve: No.
Court documents show that no one represented Villnuve that day. In an email, the company told her not to worry... that it was talking with her lender. Then Villnuve heard nothing. Her house was scheduled for sheriff's sale. No one at PSMH responded to my calls and emails asking for comment.
Mark Wiseman heads Cuyahoga County's Foreclosure Prevention Program.
Mark Wiseman: These really are the perfect victims because if you're going to pull a con on somebody, you're going to want make it so at the end of the con they have no address and no money and no way to come after you.
This week Wiseman's office is launching public meetings in Cleveland and several inner ring suburbs to educate borrowers about foreclosure rescue scams.
Mark Wiseman: Desperate people will sign anything if they think it's going to help them stay in their house. And to the scam artists that's the best news ever because you can get someone to sign over a deed to you, or a new set of documents which they think is refinancing but really isn't. The list of scams goes on and on and on.
At the Cleveland Better Business Bureau, Sue McConnell keeps a file of hundreds of calls about foreclosure rescue companies. She says borrowers need to be wary.
Sue McConnell: So if somebody is knocking on your door, ends up in your mailbox, or your email, calling you on phone, says we are here to save your home and the first thing they want is your money, just look another direction.
The Ohio Attorney General's office has brought eight lawsuits against fraudulent foreclosure rescue firms. Nadine Ballard, the chief of the office's consumer protections office says they are investigating 14 other foreclosure rescue companies. Lakewood homeowner Ann Marie Villnuve says after months of no response, she realized the firm she'd hired wasn't going to help.
Ann Marie Villnuve: I did try to get my money back. This gentleman had more or less disappeared off the face of the Earth. And then I just took matters more or less into my own hands, called one of my attorney friends and they referred me to a bankruptcy attorney.
Just days before her house was scheduled for sherriff's sale, Villnuve's lawyer got her into a payment plan and saved her house. Villnuve says she's now considering suing the foreclosure rescue firm she hired to get her $650 back. Mhari Saito, 90.3.