A pandemic relief programme, invoked six years later
In June 2026 a federal court in California halted an operation trading as National Amendment Assistance, which the FTC alleges falsely represented that its mortgage relief services were connected to the CARES Act's homeowner assistance programmes and took unlawful upfront fees. Some homeowners fell behind on their mortgages and faced foreclosure. The allegations are unproven.
- Year
- 2026
- Where
- United States
- Outcome
- Charged — an allegation, not a conviction
- Victims
- Not stated in the sources
- Schemes
- Mortgage relief and foreclosure rescue scams, Government impersonation
- Last reviewed
- 2026-09-07
The facts, as recorded
- The FTC announced the action on 3 June 2026, after a US district court in California temporarily halted the operation.
- Defendants included Accounting Business Consultants Inc. (California and Nevada), Accounting Servicing Providers Inc., Amster Beene Partners Inc., Assertive Loan Advisors Inc., Independent Accounting Consulting Inc., United Administration Counseling Inc. and United Bookkeeping Services Inc.
- Officers named were Marinus Pieter Van Zweeden, Martin Howard Rub and Susan Jane Bustamante.
- The operation also traded as National Amendment Assistance (N.A.A.).
- The FTC alleges the defendants claimed their mortgage assistance relief services were associated with a federal government homeowner assistance plan, falsely representing connections to the CARES Act's homeowner assistance programmes.
- It alleges they collected unlawful upfront fees.
- The complaint states affected consumers lost the money they paid and fell behind on their mortgage payments, with some facing foreclosure or default.
- The charges cite the FTC Act, the Mortgage Assistance Relief Services (MARS) Rule and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
- These are allegations; the case is decided by the court.
Why this case matters
Seven companies. Three officers. One trading name.
Read the list: Accounting Business Consultants. Accounting Servicing Providers. Independent Accounting Consulting. United Bookkeeping Services. United Administration Counseling.
Not one of them sounds like a mortgage company, and that is the design. These are the beige, administrative names a homeowner in trouble reads as professional rather than as salesman — and, as everywhere on this site, several of them at once means no single name accumulates a reputation anybody can search.
The CARES Act, in 2026
The alleged hook is a federal homeowner assistance programme created in 2020, invoked in a case filed in 2026.
That gap is the interesting part. Emergency government programmes create a long tail of confusion: they are real, they were widely reported, they had genuine eligibility rules that almost nobody remembers precisely, and they are exactly the sort of thing a worried homeowner might half-believe they had missed out on.
A scheme claiming affiliation with a real programme most people cannot describe is far more durable than one inventing a programme outright. The same pattern runs through the immigration and student loan pages: the fraud attaches itself to a real government benefit that is genuinely hard to understand.
Why the upfront fee is the charge
The FTC did not have to prove the service was useless. It had to prove the fee came first.
The Mortgage Assistance Relief Services Rule makes it illegal to charge anything until the company has obtained a written offer of a loan modification or other relief from the lender, and the homeowner has accepted it.
That is an unusually clean rule, and it is the single most useful fact on this page: any payment requested before a written offer exists is unlawful, whatever the company says it is for, and regardless of whether the service is any good.
The harm is not only the fee
The complaint records consumers who lost what they paid and fell behind on their mortgage payments, with some facing foreclosure or default.
That double harm is specific to this scheme. Money spent on a fraudulent service is money not spent on the mortgage, and the delay — often accompanied, per the FTC’s general guidance on these schemes, by advice to stop talking to the lender — is what turns arrears into foreclosure.
The fee is the smaller loss. The house is the larger one.
The caveat
These are allegations. The FTC files a complaint when it has reason to believe a defendant is violating or is about to violate the law, and the case is decided by the court.
Sources
- FTC Sues to Stop Deceptive Mortgage Assistance Relief Operation that Targets Homeowners. US Federal Trade Commission. Accessed 2026-09-07. Supports: The 3 June 2026 action and restraining order, all seven companies and three officers, the N.A.A. trading name, the CARES Act representations, the unlawful upfront fees, the harm described and the three statutes cited.
- Mortgage Relief Scams. US Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Advice. Accessed 2026-09-07. Supports: The MARS Rule prohibition on charging any fee before a written offer is obtained and accepted.