2nd mortgage forgiving the loan?

[Phoenix0281]

We have some friends who have a house that is upside down and has a first and second mortgage, as is very common.
They stopped making payments, hired some of those modification help companies, and claim that they offered their second mortgage $6,000 to buy out the loan. The thinking behind it was that the 2nd mortgage only gets $3000 if a home is foreclosed on, so they would rather take the $6k. The original amount of the loan was $80,000. They haven't accepted yet because they still may let the house go.

Has anyone heard of a story like this before? Are those loan modification companies really able to negotiate such terms?