Capitalism at work. This perfectly legal scam can cost you everything.
Zombie 2nd mortgages are coming back to life
FTA: Karen MacDonough of Quincy, Mass., was enjoying her tea one morning in the dining room when she sees something odd outside of her window: A group of people gathering on her lawn. A man with a clipboard tells her that her home no longer belongs to her. It didn't matter that she'd been paying her mortgage for 17 years, and was current on it. She was a nurse with a good job and had raised her kids here. But this was a foreclosure sale, and she was going to lose her house.
Karen had fallen victim to what's called a zombie second mortgage. Homeowners think these loans are long dead. But then the loans come back to life because they get bought up, sometimes for pennies on the dollar, by debt collectors who then move to collect and foreclose on people's homes.
Listen to hear the whole story.
This is an all-too-common example of If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Capitalists want your money and the system is rigged to allow them to take it.
This line from one of the people involved in the scam says it all: "An investor deserves to make their money back."
No, asshole. If you understood your own religion (capitalism), you'd realize that an investor deserves nothing. The reason investing makes you money is because it's inherently risky: You might actually lose money. You don't "deserve" anything you lying privileged piece of shit.
The same capitalist asshole later says of his victim, "Nothing is free in this world. If you take out a loan, you know what you signed-up for." Notice how he applies one standard to himself and another to his victims.
On the bright side, one solution to this problem (not in general, but at least in individual cases) is presented at around the 28:00 mark.
Reporting like this is why you should support your local NPR station. Just sayin'.
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/10/1197959049/zombie-second-mortgages-homeowners-foreclosure
