There are predators out there who look at homeowners in poor financial situations as easy prey, devising a number of scams and fraud attempts to take advantage of people who are already on a heck of a financial rollercoaster. It is important that you protect yourself by staying current on the foreclosure fraud and scams that are circulating, so that you do not get taken by one of these fraudsters. Here are some of the more prevalent scams that people are trying to pull over on homeowners and families buying homes or facing foreclosure.

- Sales Leaseback - People often tout this as an easy deal, requiring that the homeowner hand his or her deed over to an "investor" for little or no money, on the basis that the homeowner can continue to live in the home, leasing it back with the option of repurchasing within a year. This may sound like an excellent concept, but there is a serious catch involved.

Even if you sign the deed over to someone else, you are still legally responsible for the mortgage, meaning that you would be paying both the original mortgage and the lease amount to the investor. Paying twice what you were already having difficulty paying will be close to impossible and one missed or late payment will have you evicted from the home, and the home sold out from under you.

- Predatory Lending - Unfortunately, there are a large number of lenders out there who offer loans with the specific intention of taking advantage of borrowers who cannot afford to make the payments. If there is any equity in the home at all, these lenders will attempt to take it all in the form of incredible fees, exorbitant interest rates, and nightmare prepayment penalties. While new laws are being passed that prohibit many of these predatory practices from occurring, it is still quite easy for lenders to take advantage of homeowners in bad financial situations.

Here are some of the predatory lending practices that you need to steer clear of:

- Frequent Refinancing - The frequent refinancing of loans without offering any real benefits to the homeowner or borrower, or frequent refinancing of loans simply so that the lender may generate additional fees for him or herself.

- Equity Switching - Equity stripping, by persuading an owner in dire financial straights to take out a loan far beyond his or her ability to repay it.

- Bait and Switch - Attempts at bait and switch, where lenders advertise a specific set of 'teaser' fees and interest rates, then the rates and fees skyrocket suddenly at the point of closing, reaching points that are beyond the homeowner's means.

- Appraisal Inflation - Inflating appraisals up front, forcing the homeowner to take on much larger loans with much higher interest rates. Homeowners lose the opportunity to refinance the amount of the loan at a later time, because the value of the home is no longer enough to cover the full amount of the loan.

- Loss Mitigation - This practice is regularly referred to as "I can prevent your foreclosure, but only if you pay a fee". People who try to force this type of a process on unsuspecting people tout it as the ability to stop or prevent foreclosure, but only for a fee paid up front.

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