Heartland Home Finance Aka Heartland Aka Heartland Home ripoff, charges extreme fees, violates privacy act, does not compensate employees MiddleBurgh Heights Ohio

Heartland Home Finance has a Prior Record of state violations posted on MortgageCrooks.com that goes back to 2006. Anyone that is smart enough to look them will know NOT TO WORK WITH THEM.

 http://mortgagecrooks.com/pdf/02-20-06_Heartland_Home_Finance_Inc/index.html

I worked for Heartland for two years as support staff (a processor), and I can attest to having actually heard our manager boast on many occasions about how he had charged his own mother 'two on the front, three on the back' on her refinance. The head haunchos are the shadiest, creepiest men you will ever meet, and they only put in place managers they see as being capable of being as shady as them. In turn, these managers put a huge amount of pressure on new, unexperienced loan officers to do things their way or hit the road. They actually prefer to hire their loan officers with NO experience because they can then train them to see things their way...

I've actually heard them tell a room of employees that 'if you don't want to do it our way, we'll cut you loose and go hire some kid straight out of college who will'. They claim they're a 'lender', but they set this up so that they don't have to disclose the money they make on the backside of the transaction, and they charge twice as much for the same rate you could walk into your bank and get for half the points.

I'm ashamed to have ever worked there. They are the definition of a predatory company. I would NOT reccomend them to anyone.

Well, Jim, YOU would be the jackass on this one. I also worked for a branch of Heartland Home Finance and what this gal is telling you is absolute truth based on MY experience. I worked at a branch here in the midwest (no, not in St. Charles or St. Louis) and it was almost exactly the same. EXCEPT she forgot to mention my branch manager giving us a class in "Copying and pasting signatures 101." He TAUGHT us and then TOLD us we had to copy and paste our customers signatures onto any documents we didn't get signed. Most of us were brand new in the business and while I knew it was wrong to do it I did it anyway because he would threaten to fire us or not pay us on our deals if we didn't. Still, I am responsible for my part in the wrongdoing. When I finally did get up the guts to walk away they refused to pay me on my deals that were done and I had to get a lawyer involved to get my money that was owed to me. Thank god I got out when I did and learned a valuable lesson. I would not let my worst enemy do a loan with those people.

It sounds to me like you have Heartland Finance confused with ameriquest! Get your company strait you Jack a*s

Ameriquest May Refund $295 Million A proposal to settle claims of overcharges requires the lender to change its practices.

By E. Scott Reckard and Christian Berthelsen, Times Staff Writers

Ameriquest Mortgage Co. would overhaul its business practices under supervision of an outside monitor to settle allegations by 33 states that it overcharged its home loan customers and pressured appraisers to inflate property values, according to a draft of the settlement.

The proposed deal includes a payment of $325 million $295 million to repay borrowers and $30 million to cover the cost of the states' investigation, according to a copy of the proposal obtained by The Times. It would be the second-largest settlement of its kind, after Household International's $484-million agreement in 2002 with attorneys general for all 50 states.

Once approved, the deal is expected to help clear the way for company founder Roland E. Arnall to be confirmed as ambassador to the Netherlands. A Senate vote on the nomination was sidelined after Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee said Arnall's company should first settle the probe.

State officials who negotiated for months with the Orange-based lender had hoped that both sides would approve the deal by the end of this week. But the current version, the fifth revision of the deal, was written by the states, and Ameriquest isn't satisfied yet, said Iowa Atty. Gen. Tom Miller, the leader of the multi-state task force.

"Some terms still could change," Miller said Tuesday, predicting the final agreement won't be signed until January.

Ameriquest spokesman Chris Orlando said that although the settlement wasn't complete, the company believed that further discussions would yield a "well thought-out, comprehensive agreement that is good for consumers and fair to the company."

The draft proposal provides, for the first time, details of provisions that had been described only in general terms by representatives of the company and the states. It would:

Reshape Ameriquest's compensation practices, barring the company from rewarding employees for jacking up loan fees and interest rates and adding penalties for paying off a loan early.

Place restrictions on what loan agents can tell borrowers, requiring them for example not to say their loans are "better," "lower than" or "competitive with" other lenders unless that is true.

Attempt to keep Ameriquest loan agents from pressuring appraisers to inflate home values by barring them from discussing valuations with the people performing them and by requiring regular reviews of appraisers' work.

Require the appointment of an independent monitor, funded by the company, "with broad discretion to review Ameriquest's operations to ensure that the company complies with the terms of this settlement."

Ameriquest previously has reported setting aside $325 million for the settlement. The draft proposal includes the first details of how that would be spent: $230 million to repay borrowers, $65 million that states would use for additional borrower restitution or replacement loans and $30 million for the states' costs.

People familiar with the negotiations cautioned that terms, including the provision for an outside monitor, were still subject to change.

Ameriquest is one of the nation's biggest lenders in the fast-growing "sub-prime" market to people with credit blemishes, frequent job changes or other issues that prevent them from getting traditional "prime" mortgage loans. These customers are considered to have above-average risk, and they pay higher interest rates and fees as a result.

Former Ameriquest loan officers have told The Times that relentless pressure to make loans created a "boiler room" atmosphere at the company, leading loan agents to deceive customers and push appraisers to inflate property value estimates to help close deals.

At a Senate hearing this fall, Arnall conceded that "some of our employees did not do the right thing" but that the company had taken action to prevent abuses from occurring again.

"There already is general agreement on a set of prospective measures that will be a model for the lending industry," he told the committee.

Several attorneys general have said the settlement's "best practices" would go well beyond those found in earlier agreements when sub-prime lenders ran afoul of regulators and community groups. In one such case, Ameriquest made peace with a critical nonprofit group, the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, in 2000 by pledging to adopt practices that would serve as a model for the industry.

Consumer advocates said the provision for an independent monitor was key to the agreement. The only way to ensure that the settlement is "not merely a piece of paper" is for the states to make sure that an aggressive monitor gets appointed and then be willing to reopen the case if the monitor finds compliance problems, said Ira Rheingold, general counsel of the National Assn. of Consumer Advocates, which represents attorneys who frequently sue lenders.

Bob Gnaizda, policy director of the Greenlining Institute in Berkeley, which lobbies on behalf of low-income communities, said the independent monitor should also be empowered to watch over what he called Ameriquest's misleading ad campaigns.

Those ads bill Ameriquest as the "Proud Sponsor of the American Dream" but often don't mention that it focuses almost exclusively on higher-cost sub-prime loans.

The company, which also sponsors Major League Baseball and the Rolling Stones on tour, has said that its advertising taken as a whole is not misleading for borrowers.

Industry groups Tuesday declined to speak about the specifics of the pending settlement, awaiting further details. But Dustin Hobbs, a spokesman for the California Mortgage Bankers Assn., said lenders already are "committed to fair, nondiscriminatory lending."

Hobbs said his association was planning a major push to educate consumers about the realities of borrowing, as a way to prevent misunderstandings.

"We recognize that people out there are not as educated as they should be," he said. "We're taking responsibility for that."

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Times staff writer Jonathan Peterson and special correspondent Mike Hudson contributed to this report.

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The draft settlement

Here are highlights of a draft $325-million settlement between state authorities and Ameriquest. Terms are still subject to change.

Disclosure: Borrowers would be given specific language explaining loan terms, including penalties for paying off a loan early.

Pay practices: Ameriquest would not be allowed to pay employees extra for generating loans with prepayment penalties or rates and fees higher than what it usually charges.

Appraisals: Loan sales agents would be barred from trying to influence the results of home appraisals, and Ameriquest would be required to set up a centralized appraisal process to help ensure accurate estimates.

Quotas: Branch offices would not be able to set their own quotas for loan production, and the company could not require workers to complete "an unreasonable number of loan applications."

Compliance: An independent monitor would ensure compliance with the agreement.

Los Angeles Times