A 400 Percent Return In 7 Days? Riiiight.

Financial Independence's discussion of facilitating mortgage loans also raised a warning flag with George Hanzimanolis, president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers.

"This sounds awfully suspicious to me," Hanzimanolis said. "I've never heard anyone operating like this."

When I asked if the company was a mortgage broker, Garnett said it was not. Lee also insisted that the company has never represented itself as a mortgage broker.

And yet my friend received an application from Financial Independence that asked for all the information needed to process a loan. She also received a form with the company's logo and contact information listing the "required documentation needed" to process the loan, including that she would need a $425 application fee.

Lee said the form is used to help people track their cash flow. Why then, I inquired, did the form use the words "applicant information and co-applicant information" and ask for a person's employment history and a supervisor's name and telephone number?

Lee did not provide an answer.

"If anyone in the company is sitting down with homeowners and collecting their credit application information and presenting mortgage options to them, they are loan originators, and they too need to be licensed," said Thomas C. Shaner, executive director of the Maryland Association of Mortgage Brokers.

Financial Independence is not licensed in Maryland as a broker mortgage, according to Steve Silverman, chief of the consumer protection division of the Maryland Attorney General's Office.

"We need to find out what their actual conduct is," Silverman said. "A lot of people are trying to skirt Maryland law and process loans. Our job is to make sure consumers are protected and businesses are following Maryland law."

Garnett mentioned several times that the company has been in business for 10 years -- a fact I tried to verify.

I started with the company's Web site, http://www.findependence.net, where it lists an address in Tampa. However, the filing with Florida's Division of Corporations indicated that the company was registered in April 2007.

Garnett said the company was based in Georgia. The Corporations Division in Georgia also showed an April registration. In that filing, the company listed its business jurisdiction as Delaware.