STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

More Latest News

• Collier schools summer bus schedules announced
• Report: UCF players tell of intense workout, coach cursing before Plancher's death
• Traffic enforcement locations for Collier, Lee

Share and Enjoy [?]

Thanks to its vice president, Keith Dameron, Orion Bank’s August In the Round presentation brought a guru from St. Petersburg to talk to Islanders about a vital topic to many — mortgage fraud.

Francois K. Gregoire, IFA, RAA, apologized to Wednesday night’s audience for his unabashed opinions, but it was his editorial injections and oratory style that brought life to what could have potentially caused yawns.

“I do have a problem with speaking my mind and being opinionated. It’s likely I’m going to say something that will offend you,” Gregoire said. “I don’t mean to offend you, but sometimes what I say comes out a little differently then I intended, which I learned when I was married. That’s why I’m not married any more ... .”

Gregoire revamped his presentation on mortgage fraud, he said, to cater it especially to the Orion Bank audience. It was a new venue for him, he said, because he wasn’t used to speaking in banks with a bar. (One of the perks of every In the Round lecture is the bartender who works from one of the teller’s counters to offer all attendees a variety of drinks, like water, sodas and wines.)

By day Gregoire is a certified residential appraiser in Pinellas County, but he travels the nation to give presentations such as the one he offered Wednesday night at Orion Bank. After his Marco Island visit, he would be traveling to Ohio to present a similar speech. And because of his knowledge on the topic, Gregoire often acts as an expert witness for mortgage fraud prosecutors during criminal court proceedings.

NATHALIE WINCH / Eagle staff

Orion Bank Vice President Keith Dameron, left, stands with the August In the Round Lecture Series host who spoke on the topic of mortgage fraud Wednesday night at Orion Bank — Francois Gregoire, IFA, RAA. Gregoire has been recognized for his expertise as an independent residential property appraiser by the National Association of Independent Fee Appraisers and the National Association of Realtors. Along with traveling around the nation to give presentations on the topic of mortgage fraud, Gregoire often serves as an expert witness for mortgage fraud prosecutors in criminal court proceedings.

Besides the humorous interjections, Gregoire’s hour-long presentation and slide show covered the many aspects of mortgage fraud: what it is, how and who it effects, who pays for it and the certain things people ought to pay attention to whenever dealing within a lending or real estate market.

“Mortgage fraud — what is it?” Gregoire said. “Each mortgage fraud scheme has some type of material misstatement, misrepresentation, or omission relied upon by an underwriter or lender to fund, purchase or insure a mortgage loan.”

There are two kinds of mortgage frauds: fraud for property or housing and fraud for profit, according to Gregoire.

The different types of schemes are churning, chunking, property flipping, silent seconds, straw buyers, foreclosure rescue scam, equity theft, affinity fraud, backward applications and inflated appraisals, Gregoire said, before defining all of the schemes in detail.

Likely, the most up-and-coming and prevalent type of fraud, Gregoire said, are variations on foreclosure rescue scams, because of the current real estate market.

“Now is the time to do it,” Gregoire said. “These people (hurting from foreclosures) are ripe to be picked.”

Although the speech brought up a lengthy list of enlightening aspects about the criminal practices involving mortgage fraud, there was one simple and poignant message that everyone ought to know, Gregoire said. That vital point: Just because you don’t have a mortgage, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care about mortgage fraud.

The people who practice the many variations of mortgage fraud are criminals who are walking away with tens of millions of dollars, Gregoire said.

Some of these mortgage scams, he said, have been attached to money laundering that has helped to fund terrorist organizations.

And although it is the nation’s federally insured financial institutions, government entities and investors who are losing this money, it’s essentially the nation’s honest citizens who continue to bare the burden.

For more about mortgage fraud, Gregoire recommended the following sites:

• www.mortgagefraud

blog.com

• www.mortgagefraud.org

• www.idsnetwork.com/

alerts.htm

•www.fbi.gov

• www.fincen.gov.

For more about future In the Round Lecture Series presentations, call Orion Bank at 403-5136.

The October In the Round presentation will cover blues, its history and feature a live performance from Eddie and the Fat Fingers. It will offer some of “the most down and dirty blues music you’ve ever heard”, Dameron said.