Yesterday’s Morning Edition featured confessions from former Ameriquest mortgage employees. The confessions included startling revelations, such as:

• Amerquest showed the film Boiler Room as a training film to new hires. The film is about crooked stock brokers who sell bogus stocks to unsuspecting investors.

•Customers were told that their mortgages were fixed for “as long as they wanted” when in reality, they were only fixed for 2 years.

• Fixed rate mortgage papers were stacked on top of variable rate ones. After tricking the customer into signing all of them, the fixed rate papers were discarded.

•”Sending papers to the Art Department” was slang for covering the income numbers on w2s and writing in bigger ones, so as to qualify customers for mortgages they could not afford.

It’s a great piece, everyone should head over to NPR and have a listen. —MEGHANN MARCO

Former Ameriquest Workers Tell of Deception [NPR]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.