My Ameriquest Lawsuit
Learn about my Ameriquest Lawsuit
Feel free to comment and tell your story. Let’s help each other. Here is my brief history of what has happened … I started posting on Rip Off report in 2006, these are some of those reports so you can get familiar with my situation because I am willing to bet yours is very similar. I will update this site with other conversation I have had with people in a similar situation, and post new updates as I learn and experience more.
Be sure to check out the pages links on the right hand side for more posts and updates.
Original Post: The beginning of my ameriquest lawsuit…
In July of 2004, an ameriquest agent contacted me, he promised me the world, and yes, he screwed me GOOD. My story is like everyone else’s, but ill tell my story anyways. I was told I was getting a fixed rate for 30 years, my payment was only going to go up 100.00 a month on top of my 650.00 month payment and when I was little and in school my teacher taught me to add and I think that’s suppose to come out to 750.00 a month. Well it is now 1007.00 a month.
I was also promised to drop a percent from 6.5 to 5.5 well it is now 7.5 so it was raised a full percent. When the appraiser came to my home, he was here for about 15min and looked around he then left. The agent called me about 30 min after the agent left (ameriquest agent) and told me my appraisal came in @100,000.00. Now I paid 83,000.00 for my home only a year earlier. He told me the appraisal was to low so I figured ok I would not finance he says well let me call my appraiser and I will call you back. I said ok.
Two hours later my phone rang, it was the ameriquest agent. He was upbeat and was happy to get me on the phone. He then says hey GREAT NEWS. I talked to the appraiser and he says that your home is worth 130.000.00. I was like wow that is great.
Boy was I in for a huge surprise. I then contacted the office the next day (after I signed papers on the day before) and asked to talk to the agent (Jason) and the person on the phone says he does not work here anymore?
Wow now I smell a skunk. The refinance I agreed on from ameriquest is not the one I agreed on the old bait and switch. I tried to make the payments from July of 2004 until December 2005 and it caught up to me I was 5 days late on my payment when I sent it in and they sent it back to me I called and they said I need to make arraignments huh what the hell are they talking about?
Well they are not taking any money from me and have forced me into foreclosure and my home is up for sale on April 6 2006.
Previous post: I hired an attorney for my ameriquest lawsuit
I have hired an attorney here in the Holland area when I showed him my paper work from americrap he was in shock.
If anyone here in the state of Michigan are going through this same crap as me please feel free to contact me on this site my attorney wants to talk with all he can we all have a great case here and we need to do something about it. I will pass on any info that you would like and have him contact you if that is what you want to do. Remember we are the victims not ameriquest just wonder how they can sleep @night. One more thing if anyone knows the last name of a person that worked @ameriquest in the July period in the Grand Rapids location I would like to know it his first name was Jason. He sounded like a younger person maybe 21 to 28 years of age. I never got that far with him because the day after americrap did my refi I called the office in Grand Rapids and they told me that he was fired. Thanks again and everyone GOD BLESS!
Previous Post: Stopped Foreclosure!
Now the update of where I am with ameriquest. I have hired an attorney, the best move I have made. He went to the courthouse on Tues and shows the judge all my paper work on how I was lied to and the very high appraisal the high monthly payment and the list goes on. Well after he read everything, he granted me the stop of my foreclosure and now ameriquest will be served with papers. This is the first step to a case that I will win. This shows that they can be stopped you just have to get an attorney and call the attorney generals office and make a report. I will be posting more on my case next week.
Previous Post: To all who have been rip off by ameriquest!
Everything is going great right now! We are at a stand still and waiting on ameriquest to make a move! They might be thinking that I will just go away but I am not!
The advice from my attorney is to just sit back stay quiet and play the waiting game. So everything is going as planned and I have a few more attorneys on my team now so I am in very good hands.
So everyone keep fighting do not give up. What this company has done to us had fraud written all over it and they know it!
Have a great week and GOB BLESS to all!
Previous Post: Chicago Lawsuits and Ameriquest
Here we go. Now the ball is starting to role in our lawsuit in Chicago. Here is what was reported today in the LA Times. Have a great day!
5:49 AM PDT, June 19, 2007
Lawsuit targeting Ameriquest adds Arnall to its sights
Lawyers have asked to add Roland Arnall as a defendant, saying he had a hand in abuses at the sub-prime lender.
By E. Scott Reckard, Times Staff Writer
June 19, 2007
Ameriquest Mortgage Co. founder Roland Arnall seemed to have shrugged off complaints of lending abuses early last year, when the sub-prime lender agreed to pay $325 million to settle allegations by 49 states of misrepresented loan terms, hidden fees, puffed-up appraisals and fabricated borrower income statements.
The Los Angeles billionaire blamed rogue employees for the problems. Consumer activists said a promised overhaul of operations at the Orange-based company would set high standards for the sub-prime industry, which caters to borrowers with poor credit, heavy debts or no money for down payments.
Arnall, whose confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands had been held up because of the litigation, won the Senate’s endorsement for the diplomatic post soon after the settlement was reached.
But on Monday, Arnall’s accountability was again front and center as attorneys for Ameriquest customers asked a judge to add him as a defendant in a private lawsuit.
In a request filed in federal court in Chicago, lawyers for the borrowers, who are seeking to combine 20 suits into one class action, contend that Arnall made decisions that resulted in abuses, blocked attempts to reform Ameriquest and drained it of its profit before virtually shutting it down as the sub-prime industry imploded.
Ameriquest and its affiliates “were the alter ego” of Arnall, the suit says. “Assets of the Ameriquest entities were transferred to Arnall with the actual intent to hinder, delay or defraud the plaintiffs in this action.”
In an e-mailed statement, Lisa Cohen, a spokeswoman for Arnall, said he had “stepped down from the company’s board almost two years ago” far in advance of the meltdown of the non-prime industry and at a time when the company was profitable and financially stable.”
She added that lawyers for the plaintiffs were “trying to generate interest in their case by tarnishing the ambassador.”
A spokesman for Ameriquest declined to comment.
The motion to add Arnall as a defendant is to be heard June 26 by U.S. District Judge Marvin E. Aspen in Chicago.
The current defendants are Ameriquest, parent company ACC Capital Holdings Corp. and various subsidiaries, affiliates and agents.
Ameriquest’s $325-million settlement with the states was the second-largest ever in a predatory lending case. The largest was by Household International, which settled for $484 million with 50 states in 2002.
But private attorneys say that many Ameriquest customers would recover more by declining to join in the settlement with the states and instead taking part in the private litigation.
In most cases, the settlement with the states would result in awards amounting to hundreds of dollars for each borrower, though their actual damages often ran into the tens of thousands of dollars each, said attorney Gary Klein of Boston, one of the lead lawyers in the private lawsuits.
Klein said the plaintiffs would seek billions of dollars in damages, including punitive damages and treble damages under many state laws for “bait and switch” tactics.
Ameriquest, which in its glory days sponsored Major League Baseball, the Super Bowl XXXIX halftime show and a Rolling Stones tour, was ranked the country’s top sub-prime lender in 2004 and 2005. But the Ameriquest companies fell from the top 10 among sub-prime lenders in the third quarter last year, according to National Mortgage News.
Ameriquest Mortgage last year shut down 270 offices around the country and this March shuttered six operational offices, leaving only a small staff working at the headquarters in Orange.
Arnall remains the majority owner of Ameriquest and its affiliates. When he became ambassador, he was required to give up a role in running the company.
The plaintiffs’ filing Monday cites allegations in an Orange County Superior Court lawsuit in which Wayne A. Lee, a longtime executive for Arnall, accuses the billionaire of thwarting Lee’s efforts to reform the company’s sales practices.
Lee’s lawsuit names the company as a defendant but not Arnall. It claims that Ameriquest reneged on a deal to pay him $30 million after he left in frustration in 2005.
An attorney for the company has called Lee’s suit “a ridiculous work of fiction” and has said Lee is “attempting to use baseless and inflammatory allegations to extract money to which he is not entitled.”
scott.reckard@latimes.com
Previous Post: UPDATE!
Well it has been sometime now! But finally, after 4 years of fighting, I will be having my day in court in Feb! Ameriquest is all gone just like I said it would be in the very beginning! Now we all know who bought all of Ameriquest bad dept and bad loans, but I wont say their name on here! BUT we all KNOW! When I find out more, I will post all the details! And I have not forgotten about the little dip sh_t that put me in this bad loan nor do I forget about that bad appraiser. So do not worry guys, when I am done with the big fish I will be going after all of your assets! TRUST ME! Have a wonderful X- MAS to all who have been following my report! GOD BLESSES!
