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"                      <p class=\"imgtitle\">McCollum</p>           TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Legal Newsline) - Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum announced on Friday that he has received a $4.3 million dollar judgment against a Florida loan modification operation that allegedly violated the state's Foreclosure Fraud Prevention Act.<br /><br />Wineberg, Lopez, & Rodriguez, and its owners -- William Rodriguez Jr., and Freddie Lopez Sr. -- allegedly charged consumers up-front fees for loan modifications, which is illegal under Florida law.<br /><br />Consumers allegedly paid as much as $1,995 for loan modifications that were never completed.<br /><br />More than $3 million of the judgment is civil penalties for the up-front fees allegedly charged to consumers by the defendants. More than $1 million in consumer restitution will be given to the hundreds of consumers who filed complaints with McCollum\u00B9s office. The final $140,000 will be applied to the costs of the litigation.<br /><br />In addition to the financial settlement, the defendants are also required to follow all applicable Florida laws.<br /><br />Rodriguez is also a defendant in a lawsuit McCollum filed against National Payment Modification Company and The Bostonian Group, which is also alleged to have charged illegal up-front fees.<br /><br />In August, McCollum's office received a judgment against Rodriguez for almost a half-million dollars in civil penalties, restitution and attorney's fees."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://legalnewsline.com/stories/510523656-mccollum-secures-more-than-3m-in-civil-penalties>