Real Life Stories in
Consumer Advocacy

Ameriquest vs. mourning consumer

In March, 2004, as Mortech financial experts and talk radio consumer advocates, Mike and Dan arrived at the corporate headquarters of Ameriquest in Orange County, California. They accompanied S. Martinez, an Ameriquest client whose husband was tragically murdered just months after they purchased their first home, to her appointment.

Immediately following her husband's death, Martinez worked three jobs in order to pay the family's mortgage and bills. When she asked for temporary relief in order to mourn the death of her husband and her children's father, Ameriquest told her "We already did you a favor when we gave you the loan in the first place." Additionally, Ameriquest told Martinez that temporary relief would only be considered if she allowed her mortgage payment to go consecutive 30 days late.

Caught in a dilemma of wanting temporary relief (where the payments would be added to the total balance of the loan owed) but being committed to paying her mortgage on time, Martinez turned to her mortgage financing advocates at Mortech Financial Group.

When Mike and Dan arrived at Ameriquest – announced with no prior appointment, they were escorted to an adjoining room, while Martinez was led to a separate conference room with a senior management representative. Aside from their presence at corporate headquarters, Mike and Dan had already provided Martinez with language to help her persuade Ameriquest to reconsider their position. In the span of two hours, Ameriquest agreed to do the right thing: allow Martinez and her children time to mourn, and accrue the payments on the balance of the underlying loan for up to six months.

Martinez has since remarried, and Ameriquest has been paid off in full.

Success over insurmountable odds

In October, 2005, Mortech loan officer Tony Giordano discovered that the mortgage servicer for his client, B.R., wrongly threatened to initiate foreclosure proceedings on her house.

B.R. made timely payments on her 1st and 2nd loans, but the successor servicer (GMAC) failed to credit them properly in its accounting offices after it purchased the 1st note holder's servicing rights. Months elapsed, and B.R. received written notification of default on her 1st loan.

While the new servicer conceded that B.R.' payments on the 2nd were timely, it argued that her payments on the 1st were over 90 days late.

B.R. turned to Tony, asking for him to advocate on her behalf. After days of "climbing the corporate ladder" on the phone, the new servicer ultimately conceded and provided written confirmation that B.R. was not in fact late on her mortgage.

Despite seemingly insurmountable odds, Tony was able to permanently remove the foreclosure notation on B.R.'s credit report and preserve her excellent FICO scores.

Advocates go straight to the top for solution

F. Flores purchased his first home with Mortech Financial Group in November, 2003. Two years after he moved in, the original lender transferred its servicing rights to Litton Loan Servicing. During the transfer, the original servicer and Litton failed to properly account for payments that Flores made, and notated his credit report with a 30 day mortgage late.

Flores spoke to Litton's customer service department, but no one would help him.

Flores came back to his consumer advocates in mortgage financing at Mortech Financial Group and asked for help. Mike gathered the data proving Flores was never late on his mortgage payments, and initially received the same "we can't help you" response from customer service. Ultimately, Mike prevailed on middle customer service supervisors to speak to the owner of this multi-million dollar enterprise, Larry Blake Litton.

In short order, after providing Mr. Litton documentation proving his case, Mike convinced him to permanently remove the 30 day late from Flores' credit report. As a result, Flores' FICO scores have been maintained.

11th hour plea prevails

In July 2005 at 3:30 PM, M. Garcia came to Mortech Financial Group to discuss how to best obtain a purchase loan. In order to obtain a down payment for her new home purchase, Garcia said she funded a "cash-out refinance" on her existing residence through a different lender -- just a few hours earlier that same day.

Mike reviewed Garcia's loan documents, and showed her how she was taken advantage of by the other lender. Specifically, the other lender emphasized the "no point no fee" type of transaction so many consumers fall prey to today, so the margin sold on her adjustable rate loan was unnecessarily high.

Garcia asked Mike to call the other lender, which was immediately followed up with a drafted letter demanding to "pull the wired funds and rescind before it recorded" the next morning. Her eleventh hour plea with Mike was successful, even though her California statutory rights to rescind the bad loan expired that morning.

It was the right thing to do. Now properly armed with accurate information on lending, Garcia did obtain financing tailor-made to her specific circumstances and long-term financial goals.