MORTGAGE FRAUDSTERS
You know when you wake up in the morning on the right side of the bed, with a bright big smile on your face and ready to take the world on without even blinking. You open up your mailbox and you've got a couple of leads and you decide to call one of them, and within 5 mins of listening to this guys story you want to cry...
Well it happened to me yesterday. It actually upsets me so that people get caught in these traps and schemes and loose thousands if not millions of rands. Well, I'm sick of hearing about them and I've decided to write about the story of Justin Peens and Silver Tale Investments CC. I hope to GOD that this story reaches the people it should reach and that it makes such a RA RA around South Africa that these people get caught and sent to jail!
Here's his story:
In February 2007 I went to a place called Silvertale Investments to apply for a mortgage and to consolidate all my existing debts. The lady I spoke to whose name was Suzanne, said she was very eager to help us. Very professional about the way they did things, she checked out our monthly income, did an affordability study and said we qualify for a mortgage of R1,300,000.00.
We proceeded and gave her all our documents, Copy of ID, Salary Slip, 3 months bank statements, and copy of our marriage certificate. We were also told that we need to put down a initial payment of R500.00 as an admin fee(See the Rudco under investigation article for other stories). We did just that. At first we were going to buy a farm with my family, but after a month she told us that the seller of the farm did no longer want to sell and that we should look for something else.
My wife and I decided that we would take out the mortgage of R1,300,000.00 and buy a house in Rustenburg instead. We started looking and low and behold we found the house of our dreams for R920,000.00. We signed the offer to purchase obviously having the mortgage secured for 60 days with Dolmcilum Estate Agents. A Mrs Lea De Kock the same day went to Silvertale Investments to hand the contract over to Suzanne and was informed that the mortgage should take 2 weeks provided our debts were settled. We gave them a list of all the debts and we received a pre-approval.
We then asked when we would get money to pay off the debts as we were really cash strapped and we had a baby (Little Emma) on the way. One of Suzannes co-workers said not too worry, all we needed to do was pay R50.00 to each place that we were indebited to and everything would be sorted out (maybe trying to convince them that starting a payment would clear your debt). Two weeks later we still had no reply. We went to see them again and we were told that an evaluation on the property needed to be done and that there was a fee of R750.00. Two weeks went by and the house was still not evaluated. Finally after 4 weeks they did a evaluation on the house.
A week later we got the final grant for the mortgage which said the money would be paid over in 7 - 14 days. On the 21st August my contract on my Offer to Purchase expired and now I'm in crap with them to as they're wanting to charge me a cancellation FEE. We called and called and called and every time we left messages no one called us back. We went to go see Suzanne from Silvertale Investments and she told us the file was at Head Office for payments.
Last we heard she went off to head office in Cape Town to see what the hold up was and when I called Venter Eiendomme the receptionist told me it was all a SCAM and FRAUD. Silvertale Investments CC was a fake company! Now I'm blacklisted with every bureaus in South Africa and I'm still trying to buy a house...
When I read this story people it really upset me.
Apparently there were 3000 people caught in this Mortgage Fraud scam and I'm glad that I heard about this.
People I urge you to spread the word of this story. I'm going to publish the names of the people and telephone numbers in involved in this scam for the world to see and read.
PLEASE PEOPLE, HELP OUT HERE. GIVE US YOUR STORIES. WRITE YOUR COMMENTS AND LETS STOP THIS FRAUD CRAP.
All I can say is, watch out Silver Tale Investments and everyone involved, I'm going to do my utmost to get your asses kicked!
FOR A DEBT A CRIME FREE SOUTH AFRICA FOR ALL!!
Lea De Kock Estate Agent - 078 131 8976
Venter Eiendomme - 082 909 9585
Johan Spamer - 082 351 1316 (Applied for Loan)
Deon Cockren - 072 998 6880 (Received Final Grant)
4 comments:
Property fraud and scams are more rife than ever with the downturn in the markets. We try to keep people informed as best we can, but they are appearing faster than we can write about them! Keep up the good work!
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I think I will leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Advise for property investors.We purchased an 'Investment Property' that is anything but!! Sold to us by PLATINUM PLANET; wich I would strongly advise that no one purchase a property through, unless you want to understand what it feels like to go trough financail and emotional hell! Also, do not trust FNB to give the evaluation or grant the finance on your property as they might way over value it and when you realise this, they will make you pay by leaving you with the aftermath of this catastrophic mistake, and won't mind if you are in financial rune...
well Michelle This is the old story - buyer beware and especially when there is a snake oil salesman in sight. Most times we do not recognise them, but the minute they start guaranteeing you an ROI of x% - run! I think you are being harsh on FNB and valuers in general. The truth is when folks saw a property boom and growth of 10% per annum, valuing a property at a certain price was easy as within 6 months there was an enormous value jump - sad to say the same reason is why we had the property collapse worldwide. Watch the valuers at the momenet - undervalue, undervalue, its like there new language ha ha.!
Sometimes tehse investment properties are so hard to deal with that the best option is to take the value of your mortgage and sell for that, take the bite on what money you have spent so far and live to tell the tale, and you can remain a bit happier without the daily painful lingering issue. I would love you to tell me more so that i can make this a seriously decent true story and even publish the names of the folks involved so that we can at least prevent one person from taking that dreaded step. I actually even feel sorry for the banks as they are filling up with properties in possession because of issues such as this, and plenty more!!! Thanks so much for sharing this and if we can save the next person from this then we have all learnt something.
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