HARTFORD, Conn. -- Stephanie Plank of Andover doesn’t hold back with her feelings about Hope Alliance.

“I don't know how they sleep at night, to be honest with you. They're predators. I’m livid, I am disgusted and I just want these people held responsible,” Plank said.

Hope Alliance had a name and a letterhead strikingly similar to a government-sponsored nonprofit organization called “Hope Now Alliance.”

Plank said Hope Alliance told her to stop paying her mortgage and it would work up some paperwork that would keep her from losing her home. In the meantime, the company, which told Plank it was nonprofit, said its services only required a donation of $1,500 that Plank could make in two payments.

Plank said, "I explained to them that if I could pay $1,500, I wouldn't need to modify my mortgage. They assured me that, they'd be taken in separate payment amounts of $750, so I paid that, and they said because they were nonprofit, I would get tax paperwork, so I could claim that I had made a donation to a nonprofit agency."

Plank made the payments and soon thereafter, her mortgage company threatened foreclosure. That’s about the time she learned about the company called Now Hope Alliance, which told her she had been had.

Plank said, "We didn't know what to do and then they had the foreclosure seminar in Hartford in the beginning of February that we went to. They were there. Once they saw my paperwork, they informed me I was indeed scammed.”

That got the attention of U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

Courtney said, “People should be very careful who they're talking to."

"These mortgage rescue operations are really bottom feeders. They exploit people when they are most vulnerable -- when they're in debt, facing default. That's why these advance fees should be absolutely banned as we've done in Connecticut," Blumenthal said.

The attorney for Hope Alliance, of Tampa, and its call center manager said it was all a big misunderstanding and that as Plank was lodging her complaint against the company, all of her paperwork to solve her mortgage mess was on the way to her.

It turns out that Hope Alliance, which has been in existence for just over a year, has been under investigation in several other states including Iowa, Virginia and Massachusetts. In the case of the Bay State, Hope Alliance has been banned from conducting business there.

Plank said, "I hope they're closed. I hope they're shut down completely. I hope the people that have gone out and done this are held responsible and I hope that anyone that's been victimized will receive the help to get out of this situation."