Home loan modification telemarketers charged with stealing $2.3 million from desperate homeowners

A casino-style telemarketing operation run by nine men out of a Canoga-Park, Calif. boiler room is charged with stealing $2.3 million from desperate homeowners seeking home loan modifications to prevent foreclosure.

Four of nine men being accused of running the illegal business are in custody, while police are seeking another five.

Consumers calling one of two businesses, Mason Capital Group, LLC or Gretchen Fox and Associates, hoping for a home loan modification, were instead bilked of their money, and received neither loan modifications or help of any kind, the California Attorney General's office said.

The operation was set in a Vegas-styleboiler room with a roulette wheel that telemarketers spun for cash bonuses, a conference room with a poker table, slot machines and craps and black jack tables that served as workstations.