We not only lost our hard-earned money but on top of everything, our health suffered, I had several sleepless nights due to the stress and anxiety that this horrible experience created for my wife and me.After the buy-back was completed, I approached Maverick to at least help us with our losses by requesting us to give back ~$6000.

However, someone in this triangle...either husband or wife or parents, must have verifiable US income, and sufficient income, to boot.The better way to approach this is to say "Here is my income (or the income of my wife or our parents, minus recurring obligations). 

I can tell you that the stress/anxiety or purchasing an occupied home without seeing it or speaking to the occupants, does not seem to be worth it. 

They only charge .25 cents per transaction and you can set up recurring payment requests.

Ben Leybovich .... maybe C class 6 cap and you better check the numbers twice for recurring capex hung on the balance sheet:))

Customer service from a large bank with resources -- I consider them to be a unique package in terms of getting the job done with the least amount of anxiety.

If you only have $5K and no recurring budget beyond that you should be looking at lots of the low hanging free/cheap fruit.Online stuff is usually cheap or free so get on that stuff.Bandit signs are cheap, but have drawbacks (such as being illegal generally) but lots of people do well with them.Probably the best use of the money will be direct mail.

Ben's stated facts say copper pipes wear out and he has recurring (20 yr.) maintenance to replace his copper pipes with other copper pipes.

I know someone who had an emotional service dog because they had anxiety.

If you are the high anxiety type consider a lawyer, but if you are willing to put up with the headache you can probably do it yourself(Pro se) If you lose then hire a lawyer and do it again, you can usually do that if you lose because of a technicality like proper notice, service etc.