Mom Turns into Mortgage Fraud Sleuth
Georgia - She used to be a DeKalb County stay-at-home mom. Now she is a nationally recognized mortgage fraud expert and her mission is to spread the word about taking back control. Mortgage fraud can work dozens of ways but here is one typical scenario: Fraudsters move in and flip a house again and again, driving the price up on a property that is not worth it. The fraudsters get big loans from banks and the banks, many times, end up eating the loss. The community suffers from un-sellable eyesores that sit empty for years.
Mom Turns into Mortgage Fraud Sleuth
Stay-at-home mom-turned mortgage fraud detective Ann Fulmer
Reported By: Blair Meeks Video Report
5/9/2007
She has been called an accidental detective and a driving force in fraud prevention, but you may be surprised how Ann Fulmer got her start.
She used to be a DeKalb County stay-at-home mom. Now she is a nationally recognized mortgage fraud expert and her mission is to spread the word about taking back control.
Softball is part of the routine for Ann Fulmer. She is cheering her daughter's team like every other proud mom in the metro area.
âGo Rachel -- Run-run-run-run! Woooo!!â she yelled. See: Video Report
Georgia Real Estate Fraud Prevention and Awareness Coalition. A group that Ann Fulmer helped to start
But Fulmer has another identity she slips into when family time slows down. She is a nationally-known expert in one of the most complicated forms of crime.
âMortgage fraud is almost always committed with a collaboration of industry professionals working together,â Fulmer said.
This day, Fulmer is joining in on a tour of a neighborhood that is a part of what experts have said has been one of the worst areas for mortgage fraud in the country.
âFor sale, boarded up, broken windows, abandoned property, garbage in the front, this house looks like it's abandoned, this house looks like it's abandoned and it's boarded up,â she said.
She said signs of mortgage fraud are obvious. This is Adair Park in southwest Atlanta, and Fulmer keeps up with it through another task force of fraud fighters called the 30310 Task Force.
Fulmer asked pointing to a dilapidated house behind her, âThis house here has sold multiple times at $300,000?â
âYes ma'am,â said Derrick Duckworth, a 30310 Task Force member.
Ann continued, âYou're a realtor, do you think it was worth 300 then or now?â
"No," Duckworth said. "If it's got $200,000 worth of gold in the basement maybe."
Mortgage fraud can work dozens of ways but here is one typical scenario: Fraudsters move in and flip a house again and again, driving the price up on a property that is not worth it.
The fraudsters get big loans from banks and the banks, many times, end up eating the loss. The community suffers from un-sellable eyesores that sit empty for years.
Ann Fulmer made herself an expert.
âI do a lot of speaking at conferences on mortgage fraud, how to recognize it, how to fight it,â Fulmer said.
It started more than a decade ago when as a stay-at-home mom, she noticed homes in her DeKalb neighborhood being flipped and sold for outrageous prices.
Fulmer said the quality of her neighborhood spiraled downward fast.
âEventually I hooked up with another victim and a banker, and it started as the all broad fraud squad, and we kept growing and growing and eventually incorporated into the Georgia Real Estate Fraud Prevention and Awareness Coalition,â Fulmer said.
Eight years of investigation and prosecution finally turned her neighborhood around. She is determined to help others take control.
âIt's so unfair and so damaging,â she said.
A battle that started with a mom protecting her own family.
âAs much as banks are having money stolen to me the issue is the quality of life that they're stealing,â said Fulmer.
Fulmer said coordinated effort is the key to success against mortgage fraud. Now with legal authorities and a fraud task force Adair Park is gradually turning around but it could take years to fully recover. It is success everyone involved is hoping to spread.
http://www.grefpac.org/
http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=96669
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