CBS 5 Investigates With Anna Werner

(CBS 5) Some customers and even former employees of the company called "Saving California", which promised to help save homes in foreclosure, have told CBS 5 Investigates the company didn't deliver on its promises and call the man who runs it a "con man."

Now there's new information about the finances of the owner, Ray Jeter. And another family said they too were taken advantage of by Jeter.

Mechanic Jose Velez of Salinas didn't envision starting over again after 20 years of work. In 2004, he planned to buy a new home for his wife and six children with the nearly $300,000 in equity earned from the sale of the family's first Salinas home.

Velez found a real estate agent: Ray Jeter. But when Velez asked Jeter about putting the equity down on the new home he was buying, he says Jeter told him to put zero down and invest the money with him instead.

"He says invest the money on, real estate," said Velez.

Velez loaned Jeter $50,000 and then later made another $40,000 loan. He said Jeter then suggested an investment on another property of $75,000.

Why did Velez trust Jeter? "He looks professional and he looks friendly and he looks like good guy," Velez told CBS 5 Investigates.

But now the money is gone. "I lost everything," said Velez.

Velez is not the only one who said he was ripped off. A CBS 5 investigation found customer after customer of Jeter's latest business venture, a loan modification company called "Saving California," complaining his company took their money and didn't deliver on its promises.

"He asked you for some money and they don't do anything for you," said former customer Marta Mendez of Salinas.

And anyone who wants money back from Jeter may have little chance of ever seeing it. Jeter's filed for bankruptcy.

So what happened to Jose Velez's money? CBS 5 Investigates put that question to Ray Jeter.

"We put that money into another individual's purchase on a property", he responded. "It's within the property loss that the property had. It was a loss; it worked like that."

Jeter said he's still responsible for the debt but under bankruptcy rules, it still could be wiped out.

Jeter said he doesn't have any money.

"I am a small business guy. I'm just in the recession like everybody else," he said.

But maybe not just like everyone else. Bankruptcy court documents show page after page of debt, totaling a whopping $750,000 in credit card bills alone.

And then there's a debt of $1.75 million. What for? Jeter has a mansion at the top of a hill in Soquel. It also turns out the man who promised to save other people's homes didn't pay for his own; it's in foreclosure.

And CBS 5 Investigates found this is not the first time Jeter's filed bankruptcy: he also filed in 1997.

Can someone use bankruptcy processes to avoid creditors?

"It's absolutely an opportunity for someone to try to work the system to their advantage," said analyst Jim McCurley. His company, RGL Forensics, reviews bankruptcy filings for the courts.

McCurley said con men and others who understand the process sometimes "get to know the system and how to work the system," especially when, as in Jeter's current bankruptcy, the filing lists no assets.

"I would look at a bankruptcy filing with zero assets and I would be highly suspicious," McCurley told CBS 5 Investigates.

And there's something else we found in Jeter's filings. He appeared to be using two different social security numbers in his bankruptcy filings. The number on his current bankruptcy doesn't match the one he used on the previous bankruptcy in 1997.

"It's an employee ID number," Jeter said.

But the bankruptcy wasn't filed under a business name, just Jeter's.

McCurley also said if he found two social security numbers used by one individual in bankruptcy filings, it would concern him.

"It would be certainly a red flag and you would want to investigate the owner of or the origination of that other social security number," McCurley said.

CBS 5 Investigates found the number on Jeter's current bankruptcy matches the social security number of a man in Minnesota. We called him and he told said he has never heard of Jeter.

But Jeter said he's not going to get in trouble for using 2 different numbers.

"I'm honest," Jeter said. "And I'm in debt."

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