Mortgage fraud surged in several states -- lifting the first quarter FraudBlogger Index higher. The index is published and maintained by http://www.mortgagedaily.com/.

The adjusted FraudBlogger Index was 713 during the first quarter, rising from 600 during the fourth quarter 2007. A year earlier, the adjusted index stood at 510.

Just over $1.0 billion in fraud cases were tracked during the latest period, climbing from $0.7 billion in the fourth quarter but well off $1.8 billion in the first quarter 2007.

  1st Quarter Index Comparison:

      --                     Q1 2008         Q4 2007          Q1 2007
  Adjusted Index                   713             600              510
  Dollar Amount         $1,005,318,015    $708,365,613   $1,822,922,774

Based on activity by state, activity jumped the most in Florida, Ohio and Georgia. Texas also took a turn for the worse.

  Ranking By State:

  Rank  State     Dollar           Adjusted      Adjusted      Adjusted
                  Amount            Index         Index         Index
                                    Value         Value         Value
                                   Q1 2008       Q4 2007       Q1 2007
  1. Florida     $103.7 million      107            60            23
  2. Ohio        $109.8 million       90            30            77
  3. Georgia     $163.8 million       57            40            40
  4. Texas        $15.0 million       47            17            20
  5. Pennsylvania $19.7 million       40            20             3

"While we saw a drop in the dollar amount of mortgage fraud tracked when compared to a year ago, all other indicators worsened," MortgageDaily.com Publisher Sam Garcia said. "By state, the level of mortgage fraud activity has more than doubled in Texas when compared to the prior quarter and a year earlier."

The complete report, including the fraud index level and dollar volume for each state is available to MortgageDaily.com subscribers at: http://www.mortgagedaily.com/FraudIndex041508.asp

Complete mortgage fraud activity is comprehensively chronicled at: http://www.fraudblogger.com/

In depth mortgage industry fraud issues are reported at: http://www.mortgagedaily.com/MortgageFraud.asp?spcode=pr

About the FraudBlogger Index

The index reflects active criminal and civil mortgage fraud cases tracked by FraudBlogger.com -- a comprehensive journal of mortgage fraud reports, crimes and civil litigation. Cases involving larger dollar amounts were given greater weight. No fraud activity tracked during a given month would result in an index of zero.

About MortgageDaily.com

Founded in 1998, MortgageDaily.com is a dominant mortgage industry news source. Around one million mortgage business news pages are viewed monthly at MortgageDaily.com and its affiliate publications.

Source: MortgageDaily.com

This company's web site http://www.mortgagedaily.com/