The Face of the Mortgage Meltdown and the Great Economic Collapse of 2008

For all of you folks out there wondering what went wrong in this mortgage meltdown, for the ones looking to put a human face with this horrible event. Let me introduce to you the king of the greedy, corrupt mortgage heathens.

Mr. Roland Arnall, owner and operator of Ameriquest Mortgage and ACC Holdings.

Ameriquest Mortgage was responsible for so much mortgage fraud and sub prime exploitation that the very name sends shivers up the spines of anyone who has ever worked for, dealt with or been victimized by Arnall and his gang of deceivers.

At one point during 2004-2005 Ameriquest Mortgage had over 500 individual class action lawsuits pending against it in over 49 US states. The charges range anywhere and everywhere from document forging to appraisal manipulation to strong arm tactics used against borrowers. The Ameriquest AE's (loan officers) and upper management were by and large untrained, uneducated car salemen and thugs who were placed under extreme pressure to perform and to sell bad high interest mortgage loans to anyone who would take them.

Minorities and elderly were pinpointed because they were easy marks. Mortgage lates on your credit? Excellent, they knew you couldnt back out or go anywhere else. Unable to verify income? Thats ok.

Ameriquest fleeced more hard working loan applicants out of their hard earned money than I would wager ANY other mortgage company to ever exist. I have provided many examples of what consumers were put through by this evil corporation below.


Ameriquest was a privately owned company, meaning that Arnall was the sole owner and beneficiary. This is how he could afford to pay 25 year olds $50-80K per month to manage branches and book dirty loans. The entire company structure from top to bottom was based on manipulation and fraud. The training video shown to new employees who were loan officers was the movie "Boiler Room". Ameriquest would not hire LO's with experience because they wanted new to the industry types who would do what they were told and didnt know how bad they were screwing people. If anyone ever asked questions they would be shown the door.

The pressure to perform and meet ridiculous sales goals was put on loan officers who would do anything to keep their high paying job or advance in the company. Arnall created an entire culture of greedy and unethical young men who spent nights and weekend and 14 hour days slamming and hard selling poor people and poorly informed borrowers. Exploitation was not only encouraged but expected.



The real meat of what I am sharing here is not just the horror stories from victimized borrowers, but what and more importantly who Mr. Roland Arnall was. Here are some interesting facts:

1.) Arnall was the single largest contributor to the Bush campaign in 2004, giving millions of dollars to the Republican party in order to fund George W's campaign.

2.) Arnall was a co-founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

3.) Arnall was appointed by George W. Bush as U.S. Ambassador the the Neatherlands....right after Ameriquest had settled a $325 Million mortgage fraud lawsuit with over 40 states combined!!!

4.) This past year when the mortgage meltdown got into full swing and other mortgage company execs were facing investigation and imprisonment by the FBI for their involvement, Roland Arnall suddenly and suprising passes away.

Here are a few details about his departure. Supposedly Arnall developed, was diagnosed and subsequently died from an onset of cancer - all with a less than a two week period of time. His funeral was held within two days of his passing, the ceremony was closed casket and hidden from any and all public or media coverage.

Many believe that Arnall has managed to fake his own death and being that he is a naturalized Israeli citizen, is likely living in Israel right now away from any possibility of prosecution. He paid a $325 Million lawsuit but was estimated to have raked in billions of dollars from dirty mortgage loans.


Here is the link to Ripoff Report showing the 528 some odd complains against Ameriquest dating back to 2005. If you read through these stories they are heart breaking, and if you go back and read the ones from 2004 forward you can see a virtual time line of the mortgage meltdown beginning to take it's course.

Ripoff Report - Ameriquest

$325 Million Dollar mortgage fraud settlement 2006


More stories

More


Roland Arnall death announcement

Be sure and read all of the warm sentiments written on the above link by ex employees. This will give you a sense of what kind of man we are talking about.

And for added fun-

Here are a few of the great things that mortgage fraud will buy!!

Ameriquest II - thats right...they owned their own blimp!!




Two NASCAR's!!




And what mortgage giant would be complete without it's very own MONSTER TRUCK?




And last but not least...let's not forget the crowned jewel of greed and gluttony...Arnall's pride and joy....Ameriquest Field at Arlington





This is the face of the mortgage meltdown, these are the types of people that your $750 Billion tax dollars are bailing out. This is what went on during the dark cloud of the Bush administration. And this, all be it one of the most heinous examples, is only one of many companies who were allowed to rob and steal from hard working Americans with impunity while our government sat back and took their contributions.

Do you still wonder why out economy is collapsing before our very eyes? This fraud didnt happen overnight, it didnt even happen in 2008. This storm has been brewing for years now and the fact of the matter is our elected officials knew about it the entire time and as such did nothing to stop it.

Shameful.

Originally posted by BlackOps719
2.) Arnall was a co-founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

What are you hoping to accomplish? Incite a pogrom?

reply to post by stander




Nope...just pointing out the facts. A lot of people around here talk of zionism and its link to the mortgage mania. It is but one small detail, but I felt it was worth adding since it is a fact that he co founded the Wiesenthal center. Im not implying that he was a monster because he was Israeli, just adding it as fact to inform people of the whole story.

stander , hes stating the facts , not attacking jews , don't troll in the topic

Awesome Thread OP. S&F. If I could. I'd star it twice. This is the spoils of deregulating the loan market and flooding the market with cheap credit. Greedy investment houses keen to package products for the like Ameriquest to flog off to virtually anyone. Not only where the poor and uneducated easy victims, don't forget all those hard working americans who can afford their loans now looking at the deflation of a housing market that has seen values crash in line with the banks and possible interest rate hikes as lenders try and recoup losses. Add to that global investors buying into these funds that investment houses use to back these initial loans. People getting burned everywhere.
I know alot of the high risk loans peddled by the likes of Ameriquest where locked in at 3,5 and 7 year low interest periods, so there are more waves of defaults coming as these low rate periods expire. Scary.

I wonder if we'll see more of these CEO's die quickly.

reply to post by atlasastro



You are absolutely correct. Millions of ARM's and interest only loans are schedule to reset between 2009-2011. We could very well be only half way or less through the foreclosure nightmare.

And in regard to your last comment, it is funny how men like Arnall and Kenneth Lay just seem to up and die just as they are about to get whats coming to them.

I would be looking for Angelo Mozillo of Countrywide and other execs to suddenly pass away as this Senate and Congressional hearing begin to heat up and people start calling for blood.

What a mess.

"Here are a few details about his departure. Supposedly Arnall developed, was diagnosed and subsequently died from an onset of cancer - all with a less than a two week period of time. His funeral was held within two days of his passing, the ceremony was closed casket and hidden from any and all public or media coverage."

My father was diagnosed with cancer and died 2 weeks later, then we had his funeral two days after that. It's not that uncommon.

Maybe his family wanted only family members at his funeral, god knows i would have been pissed if someone my family never knew was sitting at my dads casket taking pictures of him.

Well well well....it didnt take much searching to see who else may have had a hand in this mess.

Guess who?

Looks like two of John Mccains top advisors were lobbyist's who worked directly for Roland Arnall before joining his campaign.

Tsk tsk...that cant look good right about now, considering what has taken place within the past week.

Two McCain aides lobbied for ’shady’ mortgage lender.»

On Friday, the Politico reported that the past anti-regulatory and lobbying efforts of one of Sen. John McCain’s top economic advisers, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, “contributed significantly to today’s economic turmoil.” Today, the New York Daily News reports “that two of his top advisers were recently lobbyists for a notorious lender in the mortgage meltdown“:

John Green, the senator’s chief liaison to Congress, and Wayne Berman, his national finance co-chairman, billed more than $720,000 in lobbying fees from 2005 through last year to Ameriquest Mortgage through their lobbying firm, disclosure forms reviewed by the Daily News show.

Ameriquest, which since has been bought out, was forced to settle suits with 49 states for $325 million. More than 13,680 New York homeowners got taken for a ride by the company, records show.

“They would be defined as the most blatant and aggressive predatory lenders out of everybody,” said Bruce Marks, head of the nonprofit Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America.
»

Link



[edit on 9/27/08 by BlackOps719]

Originally posted by stander

manson! Wassup, home? Hey, how's your portfolio these days?

Originally posted by manson_322
stander , hes stating the facts , not attacking jews , don't troll in the topic

Well, I guess I failed to notice the big, bright aura of pertinence that surrounds the fact #2.

Check again...quote #3 is in highlite format...not #2.


Thanks for reading

Originally posted by BlackOps719
Many believe that Arnall has managed to fake his own death and being that he is a naturalized Israeli citizen, is likely living in Israel right now away from any possibility of prosecution. .

The faking of his own death wasn't a calculated decision. This option to avoid persecution presented itself through a misunderstanding.

reply to post by stander


Yes Ameriquest did have some awfully funny commercials. They even sponsored the Super Bowl back in 2004.


Only problem was a year later when all of the law suits began piling up nobody thought they were too funny anymore.


Good find though.

Another great video....ever wonder how mortgage companies and fincancial corporations handle and dispose of your personal private information?


This is how one Ameriquest branch did it.

OP, i thought i would look at Arnall after being inspired by your excellent post, and its taken me down here.
Besides Ambassador posts, Monster Trucks, Nascar and Stadiums, Arnall Once owned a Gulfstream. This one here.


It was on lease to this company. Aspen 1 Llc.
What is interesting is what it does as a business. Here is the description.

Aspen 1, Llc Is This Your Company?
1100 W Town And Cntry Rd, Orange, CA 92868-4600, United States  (Map)
Phone: (818) 921-2121
SIC:Airports, Flying Fields, and Airport Terminal Services
Line of Business:Airport/Airport Services

The contact person for Aspen1 Llc is a man named John Grazer. The contact details below are from the same site as the above. Who is John Grazer? I hear you ask, why he did work for Ameriquest of course. As Chief Financial Officer, no less. Ohh, and he now runs a seven man company called Aspen 1 Llc.

SIC #Code:4581
Est. Annual Sales:$670,000
Est. Employees:7
Est. Employees at Location:7
Contact Name:John Grazer

You can see here some photos and locations of this plane as it still being flown around the world and is still listed as Aspen Llc flight N818DA.Airliners.net It was photographed in South Korea earlier this month.
The planes tag is N818DA. When i went here:FLIGHTAWARE.COM to look for a way to track this plane, I got this.

WELLS FARGO BANK NORTHWEST NA TRUSTEE (SALT LAKE CITY UT)

This flight is not available for tracking per request from the owner/operator

Well, i thought that was expected. But then I thought, hang on, Wells Fargo? Hmmmm. Wells Fargo own this plane. Not unusual for a trustee to run leases on planes and other assets. But......

Wells Fargo Bank Northwest NA

Wells Fargo Bank Northwest NA, a subsidiary of Wells Fargo & Company, is Trustee for the aircraft N168BF, a Raytheon Hawker 800XP with Serial # 258373. [1]

SOURCEWATCH
No mention of Gulfstream V N818DA. But it turns out that Wells Fargo Bank NorthWest NA have been suspected of being involved with some rather suspect activity involving the movements of certain individuals. Ever heard of extraodinary Rendition.

"Together with previously disclosed flight plans of a smaller Gulfstream V jet, the Boeing 737's travels are further evidence that a global 'ghost' prison system, where terror suspects are secretly interrogated, is being operated by the CIA. Several of the Gulfstream flights allegedly correlate with other 'renditions,' the controversial practice of secretly spiriting suspects to other countries without due process.

SOURCE
This is just too far out there if you ask me. But here we have a Guy, Arnall, who has donated millions of Dollars to the Bush Admin and others, gets a political appointment as an Ambassador. Settles early on a massive suit and then Retires(filthy rich and free).

A giant Orange County mortgage company accused of duping low-income homeowners has pumped more than $7 million into California politics since 2002, including contributions to Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Democratic Attorney General Bill Lockyer and dozens of other state legislators, members of Congress and political committees.
Ameriquest's top executive, Roland Arnall, also has been one of President Bush's top fundraisers, generating $12 million for the president's political efforts during the past four years. On July 28, Bush nominated Arnall, a billionaire who was ranked No. 106 in the 2004 Forbes magazine list of the wealthiest Americans, as ambassador to the Netherlands.

SFGate.com

The OP has addressed his death so I won't rehash that. What I find funny is that: if he has faked his own death then he has a lot going for him in a quick and quiet get away. A company involved in Airport services and a link to Wells Fargo, who are alledged to have been involved in transporting people, in a clandestine fashion, out of the US.
Gotta love a conspiracy. Lets get the ARNALL watch going. Is he still out there?......spending your money?
p.s. This is all your fault OP. lol.

reply to post by atlasastro




Wow....that is some seriously crazy information that you have found there my friend.

Arnall raked in billions of dollars from Ameriquest and Argent. He was under heavy scrutiny at the time of his untimely passing.

Here is another crazy idea. What if he was helped out by someone in the Bush administration? After all, Arnall would be a ticking time bomb for Bush once this mortgage meltdown went off. People would surely be asking a lot of nasty questions as to why Bush would appoint a known banking criminal as his ambassador to the Neatherlands.

From the other information I found, two of Mccains top advisors were previously lobbyists who worked for Arnall directly.

Pretty embarrassing stuff if you are facing the complete collapse of the American economy (which they all knew was coming) and the wrath of the American people.

Many former employees seem to think that Arnall isnt really dead. He and Kenneth Lay are probably hanging out on a beach somewhere and laughing like jack rabbits.

Crazy stuff. Starred your post for sure


Edit to add: top secret hidden CIA flights on a jet used to anonymously transport people who do not exist.

That is pretty heavy stuff

[edit on 9/27/08 by BlackOps719]

Originally posted by BlackOps719

3.) Arnall was appointed by George W. Bush as U.S. Ambassador the the Neatherlands....

The SAME Netherlands run by Queen Beatrix of the Bilderbergers?

Maybe he is visiting with this one?

(2006)NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Kenneth Lay, who rose from a poor preacher's son to become a millionaire before being convicted of corporate fraud, died early Wednesday in Aspen, Colo., a family spokeswoman said. Lay, 64, was awaiting sentencing after being found guilty of conspiracy and fraud in the Enron trial in May.

The ex-wife of Ameriquest Mortgage Co. founder and ambassador nominee Roland Arnall is asking a judge to approve an investigation into her former husband's finances to secure a higher divorce settlement - seven years after the marriage ended.

In court papers, Sally Arnall claims the billionaire businessman concealed his true wealth when their 37-year marriage ended and also pressured her into accepting an inadequate settlement.

Superior Court Judge Richard E. Denner on Wednesday is scheduled to hear a motion by Roland Arnall's attorney to limit the scope of the investigation.

Roland Arnall declined to discuss the case with the Los Angeles Times, saying it was a "personal and private family matter."

The 1998 divorce garnered little attention until June, when Sally Arnall filed papers to reopen proceedings, claiming she still has most of the $11 million and two homes in Los Angeles and Palm Springs she received in the settlement. The couple separated in 1996.

"However," she said in her recent declaration, "I believe I was misled and that I received substantially less than my share of the financial empire we amassed during our marriage."

Roland Arnall, whose nomination by President George W. Bush last month to be ambassador to the Netherlands awaits U.S. Senate confirmation, is facing other problems.

Orange-based Ameriquest has been investigated by 30 states over its lending practices, prompting the company last month to set aside $325 million for potential settlements.

Arnall failed to make a series of required legal disclosures, including expansion plans of his business empire, said his ex-wife's attorney, Vicki Greene.

Wiki

So get this. Evidently Arnall was also on the hook by his ex wife for mis stating his actual worth during their divorce settlement. Apparently he lied about a lot of his holding in order to prevent the ex from taking half. According to Wkipedia (take it as you will) she was petitioning a judge to re-open the divorce settlement hearings in order to launch an investigation into his deceptive business disclosures.

The man was known as the inventor of the sub prime mortgage loan, he was facing congressional hearings and likely jail time and financial ruin. From the looks of things he was also facing an angry money hungry ex wife, not to mention millions of angry and defrauded home owners who were taken for a ride.

If anyone ever had a reason to take the money and run it was Roland Arnall. He settled early on with the state attorney generals in the Ameriquest mortgage fraud cases. He paid literally pennies on the dollar in compensation when compaired to the sickening amounts of money that he made from his criminal enterprise.

He wisely settled for a low dollar amount and made out like a bandit. And the more I read about the shady details of his death the more I believe this man is still alive.

Here is a copy of the now infamous 2005 LA Times article that first blew Ameriquest out of the water. I remember when the story ran, it was humiliating for the people who still worked there to have to come to terms with what was really happening.

What is described in this article was company wide and not an isolated incident. Really twisted stuff when you think about it, I always wondered how they could get away with the crap they did. Apparently they didnt in the end.

Workers Say Lender Ran ‘Boiler Rooms’
By E. Scott Reckard and Mike Hudson
February 04, 2005 in print edition A-1

Mark Bomchill says he’d like to forget the year he spent hustling mortgages for Ameriquest Capital Corp. in suburban Minneapolis.

Slugging down Red Bull caffeine drinks, sales agents would work the phones hour after hour, he said, trying to turn cold calls into lucrative “sub-prime” mortgages – high-cost loans made to people with spotty credit.

The demands were relentless: One manager prowled the aisles between desks like “a little Hitler,” Bomchill said, hounding agents to make more calls and push more loans, bragging that he hired and fired people so fast that one worker would be cleaning out his desk as his replacement came through the door.

“It was like a boiler room,” said Bomchill, 37. “You produce, you make a lot of money. Or you move on. There’s no real compassion or understanding of the position they’re putting their customers in.”

LA Times Article

[edit on 9/27/08 by BlackOps719]