As foreclosures increase, so do warnings about some self-proclaimed 'home savers'

For more than two decades, Fabiana Polizzi lived in a house just a block from the water on New York's Staten Island. But as she walked through her living room on a recent afternoon, there was hardly anything left inside.

"It becomes reality to watch your whole life being loaded into trucks, and it's worse when it's not because you want to," Polizzi said.

It was a day she feared was coming for a long time. Polizzi, a single mother of an 8-year-old boy and two 17-year-old girls, was joining a growing number of Americans going through the foreclosure process.

"It's hard because as a parent you're supposed to protect your kids and I feel like I failed them," Polizzi told ABC News.

Polizzi looked toward the stairwell leading up toward her children's soon-to-be former bedrooms. She said her daughters seemed to be overwhelmed with the unplanned move to a rental home in a different neighborhood.

"They thought they were going to come down those stairs in their wedding dresses," Polizzi said.

Trying to bring down her mortgage payment to stay out of foreclosure, Polizzi said she previously turned to a local company to help her get a loan modification -- but the modification never came.

Instead of getting the financial help she thought would help save her home, the house went into foreclosure. An eviction notice arrived later.

In a letter to a Richmond County judge, Polizzi wrote, "This is not just a financial transaction. This is our home. This is our life."

'Just devastating'

Polizzi's foreclosure experience comes as foreclosures around the United States are on the rise.

An analysis by ABC News and ABC Owned Television Stations of ATTOM data found that nationwide, foreclosure filings spiked 21% in the first six months of 2026 compared to the same time last year.

"For most people, their home is the rock of their economic security plan," University of Minnesota Law School professor Prentiss Cox said. "Having that taken away, and having the last bits of equity that they would have accumulated taken away, is just devastating."

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were fewer foreclosures because of programs to help people stay in their homes. With many of those programs gone and the cost of living increasing, foreclosures are increasing.

"When there's a foreclosure filing, that's actually public record," Chase Haller, Homeowner Protection Unit Section Chief with the Indiana Attorney General's Office, told ABC affiliate WRTV. "A scammer can get that information very easily."

For Vanessa Lewry, the stress of going through the foreclosure process is nothing new. Lewry's father spent his retirement in a house he owned in Mesa, Arizona.

"We used to go down there all the time," Lewry, who's from Canada, explained. "I'd go visit my family, and vacation there."

Lewry said that as her dad battled dementia a decade ago, she found out that the house was in the process of being foreclosed on. She soon realized there was even more to the situation when she began receiving phone calls at work from a man telling her that he was her father's new landlord.

"I said, 'What are you talking about?'" Lewry said.

According to Lewry, a company run by a man named Cameron Jones that called itself "Arizona's Helping Hands" found out the home was in foreclosure. Soon, Jones showed up at Lewry's father's front door and convinced him to sign over the property, Lewry said.

Lewry took Jones to court, fighting to get her father's house back. She says they ultimately reached an agreement where Jones did not admit wrongdoing, but between the loss of the house and attorney's fees, she says she believes the family lost between $100,000 and $150,000.

"Even until he died, he was in the hospital bed and he said, 'Get my house back.' And I said, 'I'll do my best,'" Lewry told ABC News with tears in her eyes.

'Equity stripping'

Jones is now facing a lawsuit from the Arizona Attorney General's Office alleging that he and his co-defendants ran a "racketeering enterprise" impacting hundreds of other homeowners. 

"The scheme starts with the scammers figuring out that somebody is in financial distress," Shane Ham, chief counsel for the Arizona attorney general's Elder Abuse and Complex Litigation Unit, told ABC News. Jones' team, according to Ham, ran an "equity stripping" scheme and aimed to be at a homeowner's door within 20 minutes of foreclosure documents being filed with the county.

"Equity stripping is when fraudsters will try to convince a homeowner to sell their home at far below the fair market value," Ham said. "They do that by convincing the homeowners that they are there to help them, when in fact they are there to take ownership of the house."

Jones' attorney declined to comment to ABC News, but wrote to the court that the Arizona Attorney General's Office's case is flawed, saying there was no scheme and that what Jones did "is not 'equity stripping.'"

The Arizona Attorney General's Office has pursued the case against Jones and his co-defendants in civil court, not criminal court.

When ABC News asked Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes whether anyone could face criminal prosecution, she said in part, "I don't want to foreclose that possibility," noting that their investigation has not concluded.

"For me, and I think for most of the families that we've talked to, the most important thing is to get their money back to them, to get their homes back to them, and to do it as quickly as humanly possible. And that's what we're trying to do," Mayes said.

'Slam the door on them'

Advocates and law enforcement officials say people who are struggling to make their mortgage payments should watch out for those who say they can help, and instead turn to their state's attorney general's office, a licensed real estate agent, or a nonprofit real estate legal services provider.

"Do not let one of these fraudsters in your house. Slam the door on them if you have to," Mayes said.

There are calls to change laws, both in Arizona and in states around the country, to help prevent homeowners from being taken advantage of.

Proposals have included tightening regulations targeting people without real estate licenses, assessing penalties against any lawyers and title companies who might be involved in foreclosure schemes, and specifically banning "equity stripping" in order to provide recourse for homeowners.

"I just wish that the police and the court services and the government would just really tighten up on this type of thing," Lewry said.

In both Lewry's case and Polizzi's case, homes were lost after they say promises were made.

"It's a nice neighborhood we're going to. It's quiet," Polizzi said of the area on Staten Island where her new rental home is located. "But it's not home. And I don't know if it'll ever feel like home."