Don't think the housing bust has put crooks out of work. They'll try to turn a buck in any business climate. Witness the complaint filed in Tampa Tuesday against United States Mortgage Crisis Center LLC.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum's office said USMCC guaranteed strapped homeowners in Hillsborough County that it would reduce a person's mortgage payoff by at least a third. All it took was payment of a $325 application fee. USMCC purported to help homeowners tap the "Hope Now" program enacted by President Bush in 2007.

Bush signed no such law in 2007. And as the company's name suggests, the mortgage crisis center operated under the false assumption that it was a non-profit, government affiliated agency, the attorney general said.

In fact, it was an outfit incorporated earlier this year in Lee County by Catrina and Wendell Ponder. None of its "customers" ever got a break on his mortgage payoff through the efforts of the company. The AG's office uses some florid language in describing the company's activities:

Defendants have committed and are committing acts or practices in trade or commerce which shock the conscience...and are unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous or substantially injurious to consumers.

McCollum is asking the courts to shut down the company and force it to make financial restitution. It also asked the court to impose a fine of $10,000 for each violation, an amount that would rise to $15,000 if the victim was elderly or handicapped.

By the language of the lawsuit, the company is still operating. Let the buyer beware.