Pipeline

Filch, Nip and Tuck

The former president of a Long Island real estate company was sentenced Tuesday to four years in prison for stealing $1.5 million from an investor and then, while free on bail but facing criminal charges, stealing money from renters he solicited on Craigslist.

Elviston Ramasir, 28, of Manorville, N.Y., was sentenced to 51 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin for two real estate fraud schemes.

Ramasir, the former president of Home Free Realty Inc., had promised to buy foreclosed homes with money from an investor and rent them out.

Instead, he stole the money, including payments from several prospective tenants.

He transferred $600,00 to a brokerage account, paid off $200,000 in credit card debt and more than $40,000 in student loans, bought a $30,000 Mercedes and paid for cosmetic surgery for himself and others, Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a press release.

Tables Turned

A couple in Naples, Fla., showed up at a branch of Bank of America Corp. with two sheriff's deputies last week to seize assets, after the bank failed to compensate them for legal fees from a wrongful foreclosure.

Warren and Maureen Nyerges had bought their home from B of A and paid cash; the bank later accidentally tried to foreclose on them. In December, a judge ordered B of A to pay them $2,500 in fees. When the bank failed to do so after five months, their attorney, Todd Allen, showed up at the local branch with a moving van and tried to remove desks, computers and filing cabinets, according to the Naples Daily News and local TV station WINK News.

It probably helped the couple that Warren Nyerges is a former sheriff's deputy in Ohio.

B of A apologized, and the branch manager produced a check for $5,772.88 to satisfy the judgment and additional costs.

Rx for Medical Debt

A mortgage broker, Rodney Anderson, has single-handedly pushed for legislation that requires medical bills of $2,500 or less to be expunged from credit reports if the debts have been paid or settled.

Anderson, the executive director of Supreme Lending in Dallas, began a one-man crusade in 2008 after seeing so many home loan applications denied because of unpaid medical bills that had dinged the applicant's credit report.

Legislation introduced last week by Reps. Don Manzullo (R-Ill.), Ralph Hall (R-Tex.) and Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), would allow consumers to have medical debt that had gone to collection but was subsequently paid or settled expunged from their credit report.

"When you walk out of a hospital or lab, there's no check-out line to pay your bill, and then later you get a collections notice," Anderson said.

John Ulzheimer, a credit expert who is president of consumer education at SmartCredit.com, said messing with credit reports is generally a bad idea.

"Medical debt is an extraordinarily reliable indicator of credit risk," Ulzheimer said.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act already requires that inaccurate, outdated or unverified debts be removed from credit reports, which would cover any foul-ups by insurance companies or illegitimate collections.

Ulzheimer also doubted Anderson's claim that the legislation would boost mortgage lending by 15% to 20%.

"No one who actually lends their own money is supportive of this," he said.