Lenox Financial Mortgage is known for their ever-present radio campaigns touting “no cost” refinancing and is the prime example of what I call “deceptive or incomplete” advertising.

Refer to my article, “No Closing Cost Mortgage Advertising Is a Lie” to see how Lenox Financial and others pull the wool over the eyes of the average mortgage consumer.

The mortgage application deposit scam is a long running scam. The idea is to get your mortgage application and the accompanying deposit at all costs!

Saying or doing virtually anything to get your signature on the mortgage application along with your deposit is the name of the game.

Typical sales “hooks” used in the mortgage application deposit scam:

So I recently got an email from a person calling himself a Certified Public Accountant desiring to debate the efficacy of the supposed “no cost” mortgage made popular by the ubiquitous advertising propogated primarily by Lenox Financial and now Countrywide Home Loans. As you’ll see below, don’t expect any mortgage help from CPAs when it comes to seeing the financial rip-offs these loans embody.

Real estate closing costs can with certain limits be paid by the seller without detriment to the buyer if you know the rules. Ignorance of the rules can turn real estate closing costs into a Catch-22.

Why is this important?

It can be the difference between a loan approval and a loan denial.

Yield Spread Premium (YSP) is without a doubt the most misunderstood and highly profitable secret the mortgage industry has kept from the American mortgage consumer.

The government’s own number pegs the consumer cost of the yield spread premium deception at $16,000,000,000 a year

…yes that’s billion, with a “b”! My own figures put it into the hundreds of billions of dollars since the government’s numbers were woefully short-sighted.

I was interviewed last week by a reporter for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Bill Torpy, who published an article critical of “no-cost’ mortgage advertisers like Lenox Financial.

The FTC this week announced a “crack down” on mortgage advertisers who use deceptive language in there solicitations. This comes on the heels of a statement earlier in the summer by Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, that the Fed plans to make changes to federal rules on mortgage marketing by the end of the year. This action and announcement seems “consumer friendly” and all, but it really is just…too little, too late.