FCC warns of massive spoofing op impersonating mortgage lenders

‘Green Mirage’ phone scam targets homeowners in all 50 states from India, using the caller ID of the borrower’s actual mortgage lender and tricking victims into making payments to US ‘mules’

A massive phone spoofing operation based in India has scammed hundreds of thousands of dollars from homeowners by impersonating their mortgage lenders and convincing them to divert their loan payments to “mules” living in the U.S.

The “Green Mirage” scam is targeting homeowners in all 50 states, making an estimated 5,000 calls a week, the Federal Communications Commission warned in a Jan. 14 advisory.

Victims often let their guard down because the scammers — who have impersonated more than 400 mortgage lenders — are able to “spoof” the caller ID of the homeowner’s actual mortgage lender, the FCC warned.

In many cases, victims had previously sought relief from their actual mortgage lender and are expecting to be contacted. The scammers often know details like the homeowner’s name, address, and their current or former mortgage lending institution — enabling the perpetrators to use social engineering tactics to gain their trust.

“The callers frequently threaten foreclosure, but then offer relief if homeowners make specified payments, which – unbeknownst to homeowners – are directed to Green Mirage and not to the homeowner’s lender,” the FCC said.

Victims not only lose the money they give to the scammers but may end up in default because they’re no longer making payments to their real lenders. Many victims don’t realize they’re being scammed until their lender initiates foreclosure proceedings, the FCC said.

“I applied for a loan modification with my mortgage company and a day later I received a phone call and the caller ID was my [mortgage] company so I answered the call,” one Pennsylvania victim reported. “A gentleman claiming to be from my mortgage company offered me [a] modification and I was to pay starting in April. I continued to pay until I received an Act 91 from my mortgage company that I have not been making my mortgage payment and that is when I realized this man was a fraud.”

The FCC has characterized the Green Mirage scam — so called because victims are sometimes instructed to upload funds to Walmart Green Dot Money Card accounts — as “a significant threat to consumers’ trust” in communications information services.

“When threat actors use malicious spoofing to perpetrate harmful impersonation scams, public trust in the telecommunications network erodes,” FCC Enforcement Bureau Acting Chief Peter Hyun said in an advisory. “Congress has recognized that caller ID information plays a key role in whether a consumer decides to answer the phone. Mistrust in caller ID information may result in harm to consumers that miss important phone calls or harm to legitimate businesses trying to communicate with their customers.”

Green Mirage employs callers who impersonate lenders, agents who contract with voice service providers and dialing platforms to connect to the U.S. telephone network, and “money mules” who receive payments from victims.

Some people and entities involved in the scheme are based in India, while the money mules “live throughout the United States and are often described by the callers as lawyers to establish trust from victims,” the FCC said.

In most cases, victims are told to mail money orders to third-party “attorneys” and representatives or to upload funds to Walmart Green Dot Money Card accounts.