dChan
Anonymous ID: 960e3d Jan. 27, 2019, 11:59 a.m. No.4930137   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>0436 >>0510

Almaden Vineyards The Wine Group

 

https://www.thewinegroup.com/

 

Note: I don't know if this has been considered yet..but it seems to hit all the notes and roads

Anonymous ID: 960e3d Jan. 27, 2019, 12:39 p.m. No.4930494   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>0513 >>0558

The Strike Force That Never Struck

 

Despite pledging to crack down on foreclosure scam artists three years ago, Attorney General Kamala Harris has allowed an industry of fraud to flourish.

 

Snippets

 

Calling themselves "foreclosure consultants," this army of rip-off artists set up on the internet and plastered local newspapers, especially ethnic media, with advertisements, claiming that "we can stop your foreclosure." Radio ads broadcasted on English- and Spanish-language stations promised to "halt foreclosure." Scam artists pumped their messages through late-night TV: "Obtain a loan modification to stay in your house." Sometimes scammers posed as representatives of federal housing programs, emblazoning HUD and Treasury Department seals on their deceptive websites, mailers, and brochures. One company even used a robocall system programmed with President Obama's voice announcing a phony mortgage "rescue" plan.

 

The problem was so bad that, in 2011, when Kamala Harris took over the California Attorney General's Office, she announced the creation of a statewide task force to tackle mortgage fraud. A big focus of the task force was supposed to be going after rescue scam artists. At a May 23 press conference that year, Harris called mortgage fraud a "top priority" for her team. "The California Department of Justice received thousands of complaints last year alone — all related to foreclosure scams, mortgage fraud, and mortgage servicing scams," said Harris. "2.2 million Californians owe more than their home is worth. Their distress and vulnerability is a very rich opportunity for predators."

 

Harris described the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force as a crack division in the state DOJ, "designed to protect innocent homeowners and to bring to justice those who would defraud them. "As California's real estate boom set a trend for the rest of the nation, so too will our policing of its dark side," Harris continued. Harris initially assigned 25 DOJ lawyers and investigators to the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force, which had had a clear mandate to aggressively stamp out foreclosure fraud, and an annual budget of $2.45 million in fiscal year 2011-12, and $2.63 million in 2012-13, according to public records. And yet three years after the establishment of the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force, Harris' office has prosecuted only ten cases of foreclosure consultant fraud. Despite the fact that California was the hardest hit state by foreclosure rescue scams, and that it is the home base for more scam artists than any other state, Harris' strike force has prosecuted fewer foreclosure consultant fraud cases than attorneys general in numerous other states. Moreover, as Harris' office has failed to act, attorneys general in other states have turned their sights on California, targeting rip-off artists who are based here and have scammed homeowners elsewhere in the country.

 

https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/the-strike-force-that-never-struck/Content?oid=3933743&showFullText=true