You are in a terrible financial position and it's a massive struggle for you to keep your home out of foreclosure.

One day, you get an email from a company who offers to check your loan documents for free to see if your mortgage lender violated any laws to take advantage of you. They call themselves "forensic auditors" and, backed by a team of attorneys, are just trying to help you from predatory lenders.

You accept the deal and they begin reviewing your loan documents. You get an email a few days later telling you they found irregularities committed by your mortgage lender, which could save your house from foreclosure. You reply to their email almost immediately, telling them that you are, in fact, interested in their services.

You pay them the required fee of a few hundred--or a few thousand dollars--and they say they'll begin working. They keep stringing you along, telling you the paperwork will go through in a few weeks or at the end of the month. In actuality, these predators are turning your already bad financial situation into an even worse one.

How to avoid: forensic auditing is a legitimate practice, but these people will never contact you first and will rarely advertise on the internet. Having said that, you will probably be able to find a wealth of information on these companies before throwing money at them. A common theme here is never give money to people you aren't certain you can trust. So verify, verify, verify.