Bank instant loan no payday statement

Sifting through the flim-flam to find nature of the scam

The sagging, yellow sign is attached to two posts with a combination of black electrical tape and rubber cords. Call today $ Cash today. $100 to $1,000. No credit - Bad credit - ok!!

The business off Moravia Road in Baltimore says it is an advanced cash-leasing operation. How exactly it leases cash is unclear. A voicemail message purports to be your Internet solution to instant money if you bring in your driver's license, Social Security card and most recent bank statement, paycheck stub or utility bill.

Regulators in the state's newly expanded financial investigations unit believe it is one of several new scams operating in Maryland. And they're out to close the sham lending businesses down.

In Baltimore, questionable lenders are luring customers through promising instant cash rebates for buying Internet service, according to regulators. The consumer gets $300 now and an obligation to buy $135-a-month Internet service for the next year even if they don't own a computer.

As long as you have the word cash in there, it is a magnet for some people, said Stephen Prozeralik, director of enforcement for Maryland's Division of Financial Regulation.

Prozeralik calls the offer a new version of an illegal payday loan.

The enforcement unit was established in 2001. But it only had one investigator then and took a year to churn out a case for administrative hearing.

This year two more investigators were added and a new director, under the direction of Financial Regulation Commissioner Charles W. Turnbaugh.

Unless there is a strong enforcement capability, they could not be effective regulators and protectors of consumers, Turnbaugh said.

Prozeralik says the effort is beginning to have an effect.

Outside his office are three boxes full of paperwork from consumers who bought exorbitant Internet services to get the cash rebates. Some are nurses, cops and other state workers. Many are repeat customers.

What was your purpose in going in there? Prozeralik asks them. Did you want Internet service? They'll say, 'Heck no. I wanted a loan.'

Gearing up

The new unit had its first hearing scheduled this week to revoke a mortgage lender's license. It has a couple more hearings planned and 52 cases being investigated since the division completed its hiring last month.

We're making progress. The thing is there is a lot of work and a lot of victims out there, Prozeralik said.

Financial enforcement regulators have the power to subpoena businesses. Companies must have a license and follow rules outlining limits on interest rates to lend in Maryland.

Regulators can fine operations $1,000 per transaction for violations, revoke licenses and forward cases they suspect are fraudulent to police and the attorney general's office.

Prozeralik, a retired Howard County detective, wants financial regulators' investigative work to eventually stand in for police investigations in criminal cases since police stations often have backlogs of investigative work.

He says many of these cases just fell between the cracks of regulation and law enforcement before his unit expanded.

Meanwhile, flim-flam businesses have blossomed.

Scams abound

In Prince George's County, regulators say a different scam has developed. With windshield and telephone pole fliers, phony businesses claim they can save people from foreclosure.

Marguerite Thomas, a 51-year-old woman from Fort Washington, heard about such a business from her message machine. Thomas was about five months behind on her mortgage then and disabled from a sickness.

So she called the number Robert C. Brown of RCB Group LLC left on her machine.

He came over that Saturday [in February] and took me to notarize something, and I still didn't know what I was doing, Thomas said.

She said Brown was very charming and listened attentively to her medical problems.

He knew how to play the game, and I was just dumb, Thomas said.

Hidden in the stack of papers Brown rushed her to sign that day was a quit claim deed for her home that ceded the title to him. Thomas said he never explained what all the papers were for. She thought the RCB Group was giving her a loan. Instead with the house deed in hand, Brown sought to evict her as a tenant of her home in April.

They all come at the last minute with the papers and say, 'Don't worry about the papers just sign. I'm saving your house,' said Thomas' lawyer Scott C. Borison of Legg Law Firm LLC in Frederick. They sign it thinking this person is helping them and all that ends up happening is they're helping themselves to their house.

Borison said he's defended six to eight similar cases in the last year.

Defending victims like Thomas can be tricky in Maryland. The court that hears landlord and tenant disputes is not the same one that judges title disputes. A pricey bond is required to postpone landlord conflicts. Troubled homeowners often can't pay it, according to Borison.

Not all in the state think the regulators are on to something though.

The other side

A lawyer for the RCB Group claims Thomas' charges are false.

The matter is in litigation, and I don't anticipate making any comment about matters in litigation, said Ronald Miller of Knight, Manzi, Nussbaum & LaPlaca P.A. in Upper Marlboro. I believe [Thomas] will be found to have no basis in any of her allegations. They are all unfounded.

It's not the first time Brown has been in court over such matters.

In a similar case involving a Fort Washington widow, RCB Group President Brown said he was just doing business when he evicted Wanda E. Walker from her home, according to court testimony.

Brown said he only started to sell Walker's house after she failed to submit paperwork needed to consider other options to foreclosure. In court testimony, Brown alleged he told Walker what the piles of paper were for.

Brown is no stranger to foreclosure. He started the RCB Group and another organization called the Distressed Homeowners Assistance Network LLC around 1996 after he lost his own house to foreclosure. His pay after retiring from police work didn't meet his bills then, Brown said in court.

Brown claimed to work with homeowners to educate them so they didn't fall into same situation. He said he has helped more than 200 homeowners in his testimony.

Still there are no addresses for the businesses - just post office boxes.

Regulators say they have an eye on him and others.

Prozeralik worries there are companies in Maryland or elsewhere teaching courses on how to swindle consumers through lending scams.

After 25 years of police work I'm learning that there is a whole new kind of crook out there, he said. It's stealing with the pen and paper.