Mortgage investor Freddie Mac is taking its consumer-protection message to an unusual place: .
The two-minute video on YouTube warns those facing foreclosure about scams that con artists are using to take the deeds to their homes. Freddie Mac decided to produce the video after a study found that 25 percent of delinquent borrowers go to the Internet first for mortgage information.
The online video uses professional actors to demonstrate how con artists can get copies of foreclosure notices at a city hall or county courthouse; persuade distressed borrowers to give up the deeds to solve their financial problems; use the deeds to secure new loans for themselves; and let the new loans go into foreclosure, meaning the homeowners still end up losing their homes.
“It’s just part of the down cycle in the real-estate industry,” Freddie Mac spokesman Brad German said. “When you’re at this point in the cycle, you want to do something proactive.”
The video comes as foreclosures are rampant throughout the country. In Colorado, more homeowners went into foreclosure during the first nine months of this year than in all of 2006, which was a record year.
About two of every three Colorado homeowners who enter foreclosure are losing their homes at auction, compared with about one of every two last year.
Margaret Jackson: 303-954-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com
