Criminal Justice
Mortgage Meltdown Issue: Arson
Posted Apr 21, 2008, 05:20 pm CDT
By Martha Neil
Can't pay the mortgage? Or is your car or truck about to be repossessed? A small but growing number of financially stressed consumers has found an innovative, albeit criminal, solution to this problem: arson.
Apparently seeking to recoup at least some of their money via insurance fraud, cash-strapped consumers are torching their homes and vehicles, according to the Los Angeles Times.
"We've seen a dramatic increase in this kind of fraud," Dan Bales, the director of fraud investigations at Mercury Insurance, tells the newspaper. "People upside-down on their house with variable-interest-rate loans or upside-down on their cars are pretty quick to burn their property right now."
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Posted by lab - 4 months, 2 weeks, 1 day, 18 hours, 27 minutes ago
We watched one such situation around the block from us. Our next door neighbour is in the throes of a foreclosure. They stripped the equity from their home and retired to Florida, knowing full well they couldn’t sell their home here in Ohio. They are a litigious sort and we fully expect that their house will go the way of the flame. We only hope when it happens it will not damage anyone else’s property.