BiggerPockets

As a foreclosure investor, I see a lot of 'bad' in human behavior. There have been foreclosures well in advance of the current mortgage and bubble mess....

The interesting thing I see are the comments from Judge Robert Gibson who allegedy says "You've got people out there whose business model is, 'I'm going to target through bogus ads people who don't speak English very well and are getting foreclosed upon and losing their homes, and I'm going to steal the money they do have.' Now, we're getting fewer of those. People are starting to get educated." Why is it that the state of Illinois can't prevent/prosecute those people and their "bogus ads" before they rip people off?

I have often wondered how effective consumer protection agencies are in state governments. They seem to always be reactionary. Late. Missing the point. Ineffective.

But I will say this of my native state NC... when I lodge 'vendor' complaints the state's attorney general, they have been very timely and responsive. The goal, IMO, is for state consumer protection agencies to be proactive rather than react... do something before the cases get to court, so Judge Robert Gibson doesn't have to make comments like (alleged) "It's just pure evil" about activities that should be caught with a few good preventative techniques (e.g. web crawlers, automated scripts running simple heuristic filters, etc.) and some part time Consumer Protection supervision.