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February 3, 2006

EMAIL Hell - Erase Your Debt and Become a Homeless Person

by Ferdinand T Cat

One of the most useful tricks in the art of debunking is to look not only at what is said, but also why it is said in a certain way. For example, if someone says "I have ten years of experience in the field of law," you have to ask yourself why they're not telling you that they worked as a law clerk or a legal aide or an actual lawyer. The answer may just well be that their experience was actually ten years as the janitor in a law office. Similarly, when someone says "The CAP was trying to reduce the number of women and minorities on campus," you have to ask yourself why they didn't just come out and say that it was opposed to affirmative action.

The trick being used here is what I call creative vagueness: choosing your words so that they are technically accurate but leave a false impression. This trick is also used a lot in spam. For example, you've probably seen a flurry of spam in the past few weeks that claims to be able to erase your debt and get you back on your feet. Unlike a bank that provides home-equity loans or a credit counseling service that helps you to create a workable budget, these schemes are creatively vague about how they can help you. Some are geniunely fraudulent, but it turns out the one that could hurt you the most is completely legal and legitimate.

This particular program sounds incredible, but it actually has a simple, obvious explanation. Essentially, if you've been in your home long enough, I can erase all your debt and pay off your mortgage in one easy step: I buy your house from you.

Now you can use your equity to pay off your credit cards and your mortgage payment is gone; however, I own your house and at some point you're going to have to buy it back from me. I'm an honest cat, so when I buy your home, I'll sit down with you and discuss how long you think it will take you to get back on your feet. The contract will specify that I don't take physical possession of your home until the back-on-your-feet interval-- usually a year or two-- runs out. Even so, chances are very good that when the two years are up your home will have appreciated in value and I'll walk away with a tidy capital gain. Better yet, you might not turn your finances around and I'll own your home free and clear.

Here in Illinois, this kind of thing is called mortgage fraud, and Attorney General Lisa Madigan is trying to put a stop to it. Unfortunately, she's hampered by the fact that mortgage fraud is completely legal and involves no overt deception.

So, if you get an EMAIL telling you that for a small fee your debt problems can be erased, delete the thing immediately and send your money to me instead. That way, if you get ripped off, you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you were euchred by a superior life form. Plus, it will make me happy, and I think that's always a good idea.

Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat

Trackposted to Third World Mortgage, ImagineKitty Debt Consolidation, MacBros Home Equity Loans, MacStansbury Credit Card Counseling, Right Wing Money Store, Jo's Home Loan, and Basil's Bust-Out Service.

# At Fri 11:58 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (1) | More EMAIL Hell

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"...why they're not telling you that they worked as a law clerk or a legal aide or an actual lawyer..."

Could be they spent ten years in prison or worse, thaey spent ten years as *shudder* a *gag-spit* congresscritter and are in a 24-step recovery program (everything's more costly, complicated and failre-prone whenever a politician gets his greasy paws on it).


Posted by: David [TypeKey Profile Page] at February 4, 2006 12:26 PM

HTML is not allowed in comments; however, if you put in a raw URL (http://www.somewhere.com/page.html) it will automatically be converted to a link.. Also, it is likely your comment will not appear unless you refresh the page manually after posting it.

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