3 Cases of Mortgage Fraud

Reporting

Where does one go to report mortgage fraud?

FBI
Maryland States Attorney (Criminal Claims)
Maryland Attorney General (Civil Claims)
VA - Office of Investigations
Congressman Sarbanes
City Councilman Eric Costello

more coming...

1) FBI

https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/white-collar-crime/mortgage-fraud

https://www.fbi.gov/tips

A formal complaint was issued via the FBI online tip system at 7:25pm PST on 6/30/2019.

A followup tweet was sent as well with a link to this website...

Complaint Body

I have been participating in the Baltimore Short Term rental market since 2006. In 2015 I started to see an uptick in illogical competition. In late 2016 the competition got far worse. A review of the marketplace for 3-4 bedroom homes, which is relatively small, has turned up three cases of blatant mortgage fraud. Two are related to VA Loans and one is related to a Second Home Loan.

Three investors seeking to enter the short term rental market took out primary residence loans and then never occupied the properties. In each case, within 5 to 45 days of settlement the homes had been updated, marketed and they had completed their first bookings (based online reviews).

Combined, these three cases represent almost $1M in mortgage fraud. In addition to mortgage fraud you will find Lanham Act Violations related to unfair competition, False Advertising, Predatory Advertising and Consumer Protection violations. With this investigation, on one of the properties you will also see the tip of a very wide reaching fake review network that is being spearheaded out of Baltimore. When the fake review network is put into perspective, you will likely find numerous claims for racketeering.

These investors have now steered approximately $450,000 in revenues away from honest investors seeking fair play, and it's time to shut down these bad players.

2) Maryland State's Attorney

https://www.stattorney.org/

Emailed on 6/30/2019 at 7:48pm PST

7/1/2019 -- Contact made with Economic Crimes

3) Maryland Attorney General's Office

http://www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov/ >> only cc'd in some tweets...

4) VA >> Office of Inspector General

https://www.va.gov/oig/about/investigations.asp

7/15/2019 -- This page with phone numbers was not an easy page to find and in fact, I'm having a terrible time finding it again on the website. I called the 800 number below (800-488-8244), and in a message they spelled out https://iris.custhelp.com as that place i needed to go for a local office info... and have no clue why that isn't on the VA OIG site in plane view either. When I type that in, I get redirect to https://iris.custhelp.va.gov/ Are you seeing the issues I'm seeing?

7/15/2019 -- Called 202-530-9193. Left message for Kim. She called back and was totally awesome. She helped me find where I had found her contact info prior...va.gov/OIG > About Us> Organization > Office of Investigations > Contact us (so it was only buried 5 links deep, but it was there). We discussed the fact that there is a screening system somewhere that then gets referred to her for investigations. She indicated she may not see all complaints that come through, which is a potentially missing cross check on what may be a single point triage system that concerned me. She indicated that if there were issues in my specific complaint, they would be related to making false statement and she was honest about the fact that a referal for that to the State Attorney likely wouldn't get any attention from them (which is a known problem). She indicated States Attorney might only take it up if there were $ losses, such as related to a bank loss. I briefly outlined the losses in this case are to competitors not banks. We both understand this is small beans for many, and the damaged parties are not banks, making it tougher to get legal movement on. I simply asked that if this complaint made it to her, and they saw the issue as relevant to please refer on and allow myself and others to try to push the matter. She indicated there is no internal judicial process, which seems a little odd. Why not? If you have veterans you know to have made false statement, why push that discipline to a federal court? She indicated procedurally, Im not the first to complain to her about a lack of response if nothing is done. She suggested I notify the regional office, and that made sense to me and she helped me locate that information by going to va.gov, find a location, specify and select benefits. From there a local office can be selected and contact info for that director can be found. (these notes are as much for me as others). She was awesome.