In the West Virginia case, the company said there was no fraud and that its mortgage lending practices followed industry standards. Quicken denies it mistreats workers or customers. “There were others that did more, but Quicken did their share, and they hurt a lot of people,” Jim Bordas, an attorney who sued Quicken in the West Virginia fraud case, contends. But they do shine a light on the practices and perceptions of a brand-name lender that escaped the mortgage meltdown without major problems or negative publicity. The claims against Quicken aren’t as widespread as they were against some of the nation’s most tarnished home lenders, such as Ameriquest Mortgage and Countrywide Financial. The allegations against Quicken show that efforts to assign blame for the practices that helped crash the mortgage market are far from complete. “The worse the client’s situation was, and the lower their credit, the easier it was to charge excessively high rates,” Pikora said.
Quicken mortgage trial#
The case, one of several overtime pay lawsuits against the lender, is set to go to trial in federal court in Detroit next Tuesday. Managers urged salespeople to boost their commissions by “locking the customer into a higher interest rate, even if they qualified for a lower rate, and rolling hidden fees into the loan,” Michael Pikora, a former loan salesman, said in a sworn statement in a lawsuit involving hundreds of ex-employees who contend Quicken forced them to work unpaid overtime.
In court papers, former salespeople claim Quicken executives managed by bullying and intimidation, pressuring them to falsify borrowers’ incomes on loan applications and to push overpriced deals on desperate or unwary homeowners. Credit: Mark Duncan/Associated PressA group of ex-employees, meanwhile, have gone to federal court to accuse Quicken of abusing workers and customers alike. The judge called the lender’s conduct “unconscionable.” Trial in Detroit Begins Tuesday Last February, a state court judge in West Virginia found that Detroit-based Quicken had committed fraud against a homeowner by misleading her about the details of her loan, charging excessive fees, and using an appraisal that exaggerated the value of her home by nearly 300 percent. They accuse the company of using high-pressure salesmanship to target elderly and vulnerable homeowners, as well as misleading borrowers about their loans, and falsifying property appraisals and other information to push through bad deals. Lawsuits from borrowers and ex-employees claim Quicken’s day-to-day tactics are at odds with its squeaky clean image. Not everyone is cheering Quicken’s game plan.
Our people bring their ‘A’ game with them to work every day.” Quicken’s success, Gilbert says, is “driven by our special culture. 1 home lender for customer satisfaction and as one of America’s best places to work. Quicken says it has survived and thrived because it’s one of the good guys in the mortgage business – a lender that stayed away from subprime loans and dicey practices. Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert (Mark Duncan/AP)Īs competitors have struggled in the wake of the financial crisis, Quicken has become one of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders, using two of Gilbert’s other ventures – the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers and their home base, Quicken Loans Arena – as marketing tie-ins.
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