We've heard stories of foreclosures all over the United States; here’s another one, with a twist.

Homeowners who pay their mortgage on time are losing their homes; it’s happening to about a dozen families across the Ozarks.

After months of investigation KSPR’s Joanna Small uncovered the truth about what some are calling a scam.
THE AMERICAN DREAM
"This was the first house we bought together."

You know Stephanie and Charles Landon Campbell.

They're probably just like you, chasing the American Dream.

And they caught it; the couple moved their two little kids into a beautiful north Springfield home last May.

"We put up a privacy fence for the kids to have a place to play,” says Stephanie, looking out her back window.

They built it themselves.

It's not a white-picket one, but still, it completed their transition from dream to reality.

"We only had to have four thousand down, which was great for us."

The Campbells bought their house through Springfield's The Real Estate Company and Greenleaf, its sister company that provides private financing.

Potential buyers don't have to have perfect credit to qualify, plus Greenleaf often offers better interest rates for less money down.

That's because it sells homes on what's called contract for deed.

"From a buyer's perspective contracts for deed are typically not a real good deal."

Attorney Doug Fredrick says there's not much of a safety net for buyers under this type of agreement.

"If you miss a payment or default on any part of the contract, typically you lose all that money you've paid up until that point, and you lose any down payment you've been building up,” explains Fredrick.

And you can be evicted.

That's exactly what happened to the Campbells.

THE EVICTION NOTICE

"We got a letter in the mail from Wells Fargo saying this property was going to be auctioned due to non-payment. It hadn't been paid on in four months,” Stephanie tells us.

Wait a minute.

The Campbells had been making their mortgage payments to Greenleaf, not Wells Fargo.

They had never been late.

Confused?

So were they, especially since the foreclosure notice wasn't even addressed to them.

The American Dream had quickly become a nightmare.

Stephanie called Greenleaf for answers.

They couldn't explain where her money had gone- they blamed their "investors."

That term "investors" was a new one.

Stephanie looked up their property on the Greene County Assessor's website.

It turns out she and her husband aren't the owners and neither is Greenleaf.

Their house belongs to Betsy White.

We tracked her down; she lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

She owned five houses in Springfield, including the Campbells, four of which have been foreclosed on.

White is one of Greenleaf's "investors."

"We've talked to several people in the neighborhood that this has happened to,” says Stephanie.

GHOST TOWN>

Several is an understatement.

The Campbell's neighborhood looks like a ghost town.

The majority of the houses, all sold by The Real Estate Company and financed through Greenleaf are empty, lock boxes on the doors, for-sale signs in the yards.

"The individuals bought the homes from the builders in a new home scenario. They then were placed into the Greenleaf program on a contract for deed. We turned them over to the real estate company for marketing purposes who sold them to the local Springfield resident who moved in.”

That’s Bill Strong, Greenleaf’s Director of Finance.

We sat down with him and Scott Dasal of The Real Estate Company.

HOW IT WORKS

They explained how their program works.

"Technically everybody has an ownership interest in the home,” explains Strong.

Everybody is the investor, the companies, and the people who live in the homes… only those people, in this case the Campbells, don't know that.

I asked Dasal, “Are these people aware there is a third party involved or do they think it's just Greenleaf and them?"

"I'm sure they believe it's just Greenleaf and them cause that's who their agreement is with,” he replied.

When everything works exactly the way it's supposed to after one or two
years the buyers refinance with traditional lenders and become sole owners of the property.

They buy the house from Greenleaf, then Greenleaf buys the house from the investor.

The investor is guaranteed $10,000, and the company turns a profit too.

But nobody's been making much money lately.

"Greenleaf is behind with its contracts. I want to make that clear,” Dasal tells KSPR.

He and Strong say the real estate market has turned upside down and so has their business.

They went from owning more than 600 properties to just over 500 and nearly 55% of them are vacant.

"You can imagine that any company that loses 35% of its revenues in a 4 to 6 weeks period, it was just a, I'm not making an excuse for it. We didn't see it, maybe we should have seen it coming, but we didn't,” says Dasal.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THEIR MONEY

So where do the Campbells fit in?

Greenleaf needed their monthly mortgage payment to help sustain the company.

Therefore it never got to Betsy White, who then never paid Wells Fargo, her lender, who now owns the home.

Dasal and Strong admit it's happened before, to at least nine other investors and families.

And they say they're trying to make it right by providing those evicted with other homes and even physically helping them move.

"The last thing we wanted for those buyers or any of our buyers is to be out there with their families with not roof over their head,” Strong says.

But the Campbells insist they were never offered any help.

In fact, they say Greenleaf lied to them for months, denying there were any problems and promising their house would not be foreclosed, even after the auction.

"$15,000 or $20,000 is what we're going to be out."

It wasn't until we did this story that the Campbells say Greenleaf offered them anything.

The company told us they'd put the Campbells in another home and even give them a few months free.

We told Stephanie the news.

"They wouldn't offer to help last week when I called them and told them we were losing our house."

She's understandably skeptical.

I asked Dasal and Strong, "Is there a guarantee it won't happen to them again?"

"To say that's a guarantee… do I think it's something that's going to happen a lot more? I would say no because I know what's coming up, but would I ever guarantee that, I would be foolish,” Dasal responded.

The Campbells say they'd be foolish too…not to cut their losses and run.

Where they'll go, they're still not sure.

But they have less than 30 days to get there.

"Every second, every time I look out in the backyard and see that fence we built with our own hands I just think wow, why is this happening to us?"

Greenleaf and the real estate company say they have stopped acquiring new properties and are working on projects outside of Missouri in order to get out of the red.

Although many of their investors have had to file bankruptcy, the companies pledge to at least pay them the $10,000 they are owed per property within 18 months.

Meanwhile, the Campbells now have less than two weeks to vacate; that’s when the locks on their doors will be changed.