Home On The Range

I've been told that Housing Assistance Law Center has been dissolved. Time to shutdown/reopen to drop the trail for a while?

If you lookup the addresses associated with the domains, Israel Grun, and Karen Grun are still out there scamming. Just moving from place to place. The home address with several sites associated with it is, 4420 NW 106th Ave, other sites have been registered with '384 S Military Trail'.

Other sites that you find remotely associated with these people have been register anonymously.

If you search on the 384 S Military Trail, you find http://made-ez.com , and other legal form sites. You will also find references to 'Goldstein Arnold S & Associates P A' either something they used previously or current or just the previous resident at that address?

We'll just wait and see where they pop up next.

Just keep sending the info on your robocalls.

Only, not in the USA. The communist party in Hungary is cutting taxes on personal income for 2010.

Even the left-leaning country of Germany is planning tax cuts for citizens.

While in the USA, massive tax increases are planned. One huge one is going to be through the 'Cap and Trade' legislation that is going to intrude on your life and drive the cost of everything that is produced in this country.

Our government is completely out of control. It's like living with a crazy relative, or moody teenager, you never know what you are going to find out tomorrow. They are being more and more emboldened, suppressing information that is counter to their agenda, even when it comes from inside their agencies.

Most of the regulations in the 'Cap and Tax' bill, is based on California law, and we know how well they are doing right now.

One day without calls, then a new robocall from 1-800-677-1445, which, when called back, has a message that you have dialed a number that cannot be reached from your calling area.

This one is for help with your credit card debt.

For the past three days, I have received calls from this number. When you press 1 to go to a person, the line is answered 'How may I help you?' and if you question them at this point, they hang up.

Today I told them that I needed help with my credit card debt. I was then transferred to Bryan. This company says their name is 'Nationwide Referral Services', mentions 'Noteworld Services', and says they are 'Stratton and Fienstein'

He went through his script, I answered the questions, and got to a point where he was going to try and close. I apologized that there was a meeting I had forgotton about, and that if he gave me a number, I would call him back afterwards.

The hook was set, so he gave me their actual number.

So if you receive a call from 1-800-677-1445, give them a call back at 1-877-553-3328, x 163 to speak with Bryan, and ask him why he's calling you all the time.

They over-compensate that they are not out to scam anyone, by walking you through sites to verify their legitimatcy. Looking up Stratton & Fienstein at http://www.floridabar.org, and on http://www.bbb.org.

I dont know if they are actually part of the law firm, or just using their name, but a lawfull company doesnt spoof the callerid.

A search came up with a suspended hosting account in google cache for freeyourdebt.net, and a few job opportunities for credit counselors in New York.

Within the last week, the people at the 'Housing Assistance Law Center' have changed websites, it seems to be a migrating pattern that they have.

I found a post that they used to be The Hall Firm,Inc.

The site is the same, but has moved. You can still find the site in Google Cache for hahlc.com

If you search on their phone numbers, you can find forums where people were looking for them under a different company name 'Housing Assistance, Inc.'

Every month they register a new name, hahelp.com and halawcenter.com in march, hahlc.com in april, with halawcenter.com the current active site.

It seems that all of the tech support for these companies is done through Israel Grun, who has his name tied to several domains with links to the law center. When you search the common links, you find Techs on Call , Intelitech Systems , and newer links to vpweb.com and vistaprint.com.

The physical addresses are the same, and now it looks as if they are setting up a bank site at ,Eco Bank Ghana. Either they are all related or vistaprint/vpweb is the favorite among scammers.

There is nothing wrong with running a business from your home, but all of the links and activities related to these are highly suspicious.

I was forwarded some emails that were exchanged between an employee at halawcenter.com and someone receiving a lot of calls from their robo-dialer.

The employee said it was of no concern where the referrals came from, and they were not paying a call center to make calls on their behalf to people at work, cell phone, home, all on the 'Do-Not-Call List'. The call center is spoofing their number, giving out a fake business name, and a number that has been disconnected.

They are making thousands of calls, playing a message from Obama, and giving out false information about themselves, for the benefit of Housing Assistance Law Center, for free?

Email Text, after five calls in one day from Mortgage Solutions:

To: greg.s@halawcenter.com

How cheap did you get your outbound call service setup?

I dont see how you are making any money with this type of upfront representation.

You need a programmer that uses all of the resources available to generate better leads with less hassle, and weeds out the duplicates.

From: Processing Center greg.s@halawcenter.com

Are you kidding me? I thought you would like that. It was my understanding that your hobby is to go down fake applications ? So why don’t you take advantage….George, Oscar , Frank, Joe, Steve, who ever you are.

Enjoy yourself.

To: Processing Center

I just went far enough to find out who is at the end of these low rate scams, you make a lot of calls and do alot of work for very little money. Using the same list as everyone else.

From: Processing Center greg.s@halawcenter.com

We are not scamming people that is why. Plus it is not our company making the phone calls. The company refers the applications to us. Very simple. Thought you would have figured that out by now.

To: Processing Center

If you werent running a scam, you would use a legitimate call center, not someone that spoofs the number, or hangs up when questioned, or has no means of actually removing a number from their list.

You are very urgent about getting a check though.

It's not hard to figure out whats going on.

From: Processing Center greg.s@halawcenter.com

Like I mentioned before, I don’t know much about the call center we get some applications from, nor is it my concern. All I know is we run a legitimate law center performing loan modifications. Yes we are urgent collecting checks. If you were foreclosure, wouldn’t you want someone to get started right away?? I mean this is very simple stuff to understand. But if you wish to waste more of you time talking to call centers across the united states, and taking pages of notes to figure out something very simple, by all means. I wish you the best of luck to do whatever your trying to do with your bad research.

To: Processing Center

So as you explain it, you are at a law firm, paying a call center to break the law, but that doesnt concern you?

What is the name of the company that you contract for the call center?

From: Processing Center greg.s@halawcenter.com

Obviously you don’t take as good of notes as you think. I didn’t say anything about us paying any call center for applications. They simply refer the applications to us. What they do is there business, which again, does not concern me. You know they are called CALL CENTERS for a reason……THEY CALL PEOPLE. Why don’t you refer back to your bad note taking and find the companies name out yourself. Mr. Detective.

To: Processing Center
So, out of the goodness of their hearts, they, which will not give their true company name, and purposefully give out a number that is disconnected,
refer people to you?

They do this without compensation?

Not likely.

Is that what your testimony to the FTC will be?

They are the violators, you just benefit from their violations?

No response after that..........

This happened last month, several emails back and forth about a car that I posted for sale online.

If you sent someone a cashier's check for $26,000.00, wouldnt you want to follow up on it to complete the transaction?

I have gotten no response from them on any additional inquiries.

The first email was the typical easy-to-identify scammer message, asking about the price, which was listed in the ad. They asked me how much, so I doubled the amount in the ad, and they agreed. An additional six thousand would be added to the amount, to cover their agent and shipping.

Here's the last email, once they mailed the check
.

From: Calito Lopez May 25

Reply

Follow up message
Hello Jay Swackhamer ,

From the postal delivery your payment is supposed to have arrived. Thanks for getting back to me. Kindly make a check deposit into your account and transfer the funds to the agent and shipper. This is the information of the agent and shipper you need for the WESTERN UNION FUNDS TRANSFER.

You are to split the funds into two and send $3000 to the agent and the remaining $3000 the shipper for them to commence with the shipping logistic/pick-up immediately.

Below is the agent's full name and address for the transfer:

NAME :MICHAEL CLAYTON
ADDRESS:250 Franklin Street Boston, MA 02110

Below is the shipper full name and address for the transfer:

NAME: DENNIS ALVIS
ADDRESS: 106 Merrimac Street,Boston, MA 02114

AGENTS EMAIL - (shipping_delivery19980@yahoo.com )

We have made enquiries today, from WESTERN UNION FUNDS TRANSFER and we have been informed that you would be required to pay some charges as cost of the money
transfer to the agent. The agent and shipper are presently in BOSTON right now and will be heading to the present location of the property immediately the funds is sent to them,
so it is very necessary that we speed up our activities as regreds this transaction, so that we can meet up with their schedule as in view of the time range that we have to conclude the transaction. I will be expecting your mail with a copy ''CC'' of the the money transfer details to the agent so that he can schedule shipping and pickup arrangements.

Please remember that you are required to forward the following money transfer details below, after you have done the transfer.

1 - Money transfer control number (MTCN)
2 - Senders name and Address
3 - You are to state in your mail the exact amount that you sent after the transfer charges have been deducted.

You may go to any of the Western union outlets near you to do the transfer.

Thanks & have a great day..