Mortgage fraud trends up, mostly due to property valuation scams

Interthinx, a provider of comprehensive risk mitigation solutions for the financial services industry, has released its quarterly Mortgage Fraud Risk Report, covering data collected in the fourth quarter of 2012. According to the most recent analysis, overall risk nationwide increased 16 percent over the previous quarter and 9 percent over fourth-quarter 2011. The overriding source of the increase can be traced to a large increase in property valuation fraud risk.