Stacy Peppers, a West Palm Beach insurance agent, got a cold call in 2009 from a company promising to secure her a loan modification. With her husband recently laid off, Peppers was having trouble paying the mortgage on her Pompano Beach house and was turned down for a mortgage modification when she called her lender.

She forked over $2,100 to the Miami company, Truman Foreclosure Assistance, and its subsidiary, the Airan-Pace Law Firm of Coral Gables.