Due to a combination of enforcement actions, educational campaigns and an improving housing market, foreclosure frauds are starting to diminish, an article in National Mortgage News reports.

State and federal laws and regulations have bolstered up to protect consumers, the article explains.

For example, in California, legislation was passed that said consumers cannot be asked to pay for services in advance of their delivery.

Still, fraud schemes have a tendency to reemerge from time to time. And despite the many plea deals and convictions that state attorney generals, the Department of Housing Urban Development and Office of the Inspector General have announced involving foreclosure rescue and loan modification scams, some of the scammers remain in business.