By Tiffany Craig Special Assignment Reporter
Published: Fri, April 25, 2008 - 6:57 pm
Last Updated: Fri, April 25, 2008 - 6:59 pm
Last Updated: Fri, April 25, 2008 - 6:59 pm
Tiffany Craig
You can imagine the surprise of a Grand Bay family when they got a letter saying their house was being auctioned off.
Joe'l Decker read us the part of the letter that really bothered her. 'As I am sure you are aware, your property has been scheduled for sale at a public foreclosure auction. Immediately my heart went to my stomach. This is my home."
Decker says she has a bankruptcy in her past but these days, bills are up to date.
This letter
arrived in the mail box and she started making calls.With lots of questions and still no answers, she called News 5.
We took her letter to the Mobile County Probate Court and showed it to Administrative Assistant Richard Johnson. "We had nothing to do with this. It wasn't ordered by probate court."
After a phone book search, we finally found the mystery man behind the letter. His name is Buddy Van Fosson. "You're not out here running a scam? No No. There are too many people out there that need help and want help."
Van Fosson says his company is called Pelican Properties of Alabama. He says he buys homes in foreclosure or in bankruptcy cases and his mailing lists got mixed up. "This was strictly an accident. It's just the wrong letter got sent to the wrong person. Well, how many of these accidents did you have? Probably about 8 or 10 and they've all been contacted."
Van Fosson might have contacted some of the people that received his letters but the Decker's never got a call.
We got the two connected. Joe'l is still uncomfortable about her information being out there but at least she knows the source of the problem.
Van Fosson says in the future he will make sure that his letters have more information on them so that potential customers won't be alarmed.
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Yea Right! This is a mistake like the letter I receive ever so often telling me my vehicle warranty is about to expire and I need to send in this payment immediately to continue coverage. Don’t you just wish you could hook these con artist
in their own scams? I’ve never sent them a dime for the last two years and I still get these notifications. They must be using a mailing list from somewhere.