Mortgage modification or refinancing scams are always popular and I have written about them here at Scamicide.com for years. Recently many people are reporting being contacted in regard to the HARP program about refinancing their mortgages. These emails are scams. The Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) is legitimate and was created following the disastrous meltdown in the home mortgage market in 2008. HARP is a free government program that can help you refinance, however it has very precise eligibility requirements and while there are closing costs, there is no reason to pay a scammer for helping you through the HARP application process. For more information about HARP, you can go to https://www.harp.gov/about. Some mortgage modification scammers persuade their victims to pay them “trial mortgage payments” that the scammers promise will be used to reduce their mortgages, but instead are merely stolen by the scammers for their own use. Many mortgage scam victims have lost their homes to foreclosure when they made their payments to the scammers rather than their lenders.
TIPS
Mortgage modification scams are common and dangerous.  Never pay any fees upfront to anyone promising to get you a mortgage modification. It is a violation of federal law for legitimate mortgage relief organizations to charge you before their work is completed and your lender has modified the mortgage.
Also, never send your mortgage payment to anyone other than your lender.
Finally, if you do decide to work with a particular mortgage modification company, make sure that the company is legitimate by checking with your state’s attorney general.
You can also get help with mortgage modifications by going to http://www.hopenow.com which is a website of an alliance of legitimate lenders and government regulators.