Growth's unscrupulous elements.

• Author: Kerven, Anne
• Position: Includes related article on business scams - Unscrupulous business practices

Dave Zook hears it all - construction and mortgage fraud, business scams, embezzlement, theft, pyramid schemes, and more. He's a man who demands proof, and the chief deputy district attorney has found it: Colorado's prosperity doesn't exactly heighten a sense of caveat emptor in either business people or consumers.

A common complaint at his 4th Judicial District Attorney's Office's Economic Crime Division office in Colorado Springs, for example, comes from commercial or investment property borrowers.

Lenders make convincing assurances the loan is on the way, but require the applicant to pay a fee upfront, Zook said. (By law, few lenders can charge upfront fees, although mortgage brokers can, usually for an appraisal and credit report.)

Complaints arise when a mortgage broker refuses to refund the fee when the loan doesn't materialize, the fees were spent on something else, appraisers aren't paid, the broker disappears or a combination of the above.

For big-ticket investments, that's especially painful: One percent of $1 million for an apartment development is $10,000 - a lot to forfeit. It happens, "Though why anyone would get into that kind of deal, I don't know," Zook said.

And proving intent - the key difference between criminal charges or civil court - is tough. An unscrupulous broker can be full of excuses.

Can it be simple miscommunication?

"Most of the complaints we get are past the miscommunication stage," Zook said bluntly.

Maybe it's the dark side of consumer confidence. Depending on whom you ask, Colorado's prosperity has let the populace grow a little lax, leading to a noticeable increase in unscrupulous business practices and outright scams, particularly in the growth offshoots of construction, home repair and mortgage brokering. Others say scams haven't increased with growth - although they may shift markets and tactics a bit. In either case, the justice a victim exacts, if any, depends largely on what the scammer intended to do - and the ability to prove it.

In the mortgage cases, some brokers do "muddy the waters enough to make it hard to demonstrate (intent)," by saying the customer rejected the loan, by prolonging the wait until the borrower gives up, or through other tactics. "It comes down to proving that they never intended to perform," Zook said.

Some scares and bad practices - construction and home repair, and mortgages - make the Top 10 complaint lists at both the state's attorney general's offices and the...