Dear Mr. Berko:

We are trying to help our daughter and her husband secure a $200,000 mortgage on a house they want to buy. I saw an advertisement by LendingTree and spoke to a man there, and he offered a $200,000 mortgage with payments of $896 a month, not including taxes and insurance. That seems to be a good deal, especially because our kids have less than stellar credit. What do you think?

B.R., Erie, Pa.

Dear B.R.:

Unfortunately many firms in the home mortgage business frequently advertise partial truths (I would say LendingTree is a partial-truth advertiser), and even more firms are guilty of outright, downright, bold-faced lies.

Because the math IQ of most American consumers functions at the grade school level, mortgage companies are making a bloody fortune taking them to the cleaners. In my opinion, that LendingTree advertisement is extremely disingenuous.

I’m going to make this simple for you and your kids. Current 30-year mortgage rates for borrowers with good credit are 6.5 percent, and your kids don’t have good credit. For the sake of this discussion, assume that the lender is going to charge 6.5 percent interest on a $200,000 mortgage. The payments on that $200,000 mortgage are (6.5 percent times $200,000) $13,000 a year or ($13,000 divided by 12 months) $1,083.33 a month, not including monthly principal payments or taxes or insurance. That’s $187 more per month than the $896 rate those iniquitous flimflammers at LendingTree quoted you. Now I’m not going to show you the math, but $896 a month on a $200,000 mortgage is a 5.375 percent interest rate, and even retired termite inspectors can’t get rates that low.

The tactics of most mortgage lenders are unconscionable, and if they hook you with their talons, they’ll gleefully suck the marrow from your bones. Tell the LendingTree people to bug off, and if they continue calling, then use stronger language.

Because the “hidden” fees are so high, and because it’s so easy to baffle and bewilder the consumer, the home mortgage business is plagued with con artists and swindlers who snicker and giggle when suckers respond to their shifty advertising. I can’t recommend a mortgage company to you, and I won’t recommend an attorney, either. They’re equally in cahoots and wash one another’s backs. Who do you think prepares those small-print mortgage documents wherein you unknowingly pledge the body parts of your firstborn and indenture your granddaughter?

A home is the largest purchase most of us will ever make. Most of us wisely do a lot of research prior to signing the purchase contract. You verify real estate taxes, square footage, schools and shopping convenience. You have the home inspected by a professional who checks the nooks and crannies. Then a termite inspector probes and surveys the house.

But when it comes down to the mortgage, few borrowers bother to compare or check the terms, even though this is the largest loan they will ever sign, and they’re on that hook for 30 years. The best person to help you here is not your attorney, certainly not your banker and really not the real estate broker who is selling you the house. Many of these people feed off each other like groveling apple-polishers.

But I would trust your accountant. Certified public accountants are often the sharpest tools in the shed. In a glimpse and glance, most CPAs can tell you if a mortgage is fair, fraud or in between.

That advice is worth a couple of Benjamin Franklins, because they can save you tens of thousands of dollars right off the bat.