The bankruptcy filing is often both incomplete and inappropriate for the victim's condition; and, often, the victim does not even realize that a bankruptcy has been filed.

Victims are people in financial trouble who believe they are becoming clients of a professional operation. The fraudster promises to make the foreclosures, evictions, repossessions, high interest rates on loans, and other debt problems go away. The victim pays a large initial fee for the fraudster's services, and the fraudster usually has the victim sign blank documents. Sometimes the victim is also told to make their usual payments directly to the fraudulent advisor instead of the real creditors, or to transfer their real estate to the fraudster. The payments are stolen by the fraudster instead of being used to pay victims' debts, and real estate is often deeded in fractional shares to other victims unknowingly under bankruptcy , complicating ownership to make foreclosures even more difficult by having multiple (fraudulent) bankruptcies involved in the property.

In other petition mill schemes, the fraudster simply creates summary bankruptcy filings for the victim. The victim is then told to file pro se in court and deny that anyone helped prepare the documents.