A friend of mine just closed his mortgage business in Arizona. Too bad. He was a good mortgage broker.
Well he's not dead...I guess he still is a good mortgage broker.
And I got to thinking: I wonder what happened to American Mortgage Specialists?
American Mortgage Specialists, Inc. was a company that I worked for briefly. I was the Chandler branch manager.
The reason I didn't work there too long was because the management was lying, cheating, scum.
Does that sound too harsh? Perhaps I'm not gifted with a silver tongue.
At one company meeting with branch managers, the President of the company bragged-- in front of over 100 employees-- about screwing an old woman out of $10,000 with a negatively-amortizing option ARM loan.
It was "everything to make a buck" with these people, and they all slept just fine every night.
I pretty much had it at that point. I resigned. I wasn't going to work for a mortgage company which clearly had an idiot for a President. Not only was he an idiot, but he wanted us to push the Option ARM loan on our clients-- due to the high profit margin--which I always thought was crap (the Option ARM).
In my entire career, I closed one Option ARM mortgage loan and it was for a close personal friend who very clearly understood that he was taking out a mortgage that I thought was crap.
I discouraged people from taking it and it cost me clients. It cost me money. But I wasn't going to be a guy who puts senior citizens upside-down on their homes, with a very confusing and decieving loan, just so I could have a nicer car.
I remember, after I registered AZWM.com and opened the Chandler branch of Arizona Wholesale Mortgage, I had just hung up the telephone with the Arizona Better Business Bureau. So I thought I would check out my own former employer.
Thirty-three consumer complaints in a very short time span. Thirty-three!!!
And guess what? Turns out that in June of 2010 the AZ Department of State Banking issued an "emergency suspension" order and shut them down. The legal document filed by the state actually says that emergency sanctions were necessary because this Arizona mortgage company was a danger to public health and welfare and needed to be shut down immediately.
Arizona Wholesale Mortgage has been in business since 1998 and we have never, ever had a single consumer complain...ever.
The BBB is certainly not foolproof. Bad businesses sometimes have excellent reputations, just because they've jilted mortgage clients who never took the time to complain.
But I still can't help but think that a good number of those 33 people would not have been jilted if they would have taken the time to check out the company before they signed their disclosures, not after closing.
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