Ameriquest Looks Dead?
"ROMANTIC DINNER" AD: AKA "KILLED THE CAT"
Ameriquest had this ad where the guy is fixing a romantic Italian dinner. The cat knocks over the red sauce and he stops chopping something to bend over and pick up the cat out of the spill just as the lady walks in the door. Thus the knife, cat and red spill. A personal favorite of commercials for me.
The company whose slogan and interesting commercials were about not believing the first impression because the situation isn't what it seems is closing all of its retail offices. That seems to be pretty bad to me no matter what the reality is.
I've never worked there. I have many friends who did, and they called it a sweatshop with phones replacing sewing machines. I worked at a company similar to Ameriquest called Oak Street, which was just as bad. How was it bad? You'll be paid hourly for your work but you better not ever ask for overtime. That and if you don't get your goals met you had better not leave the office until you do. Ahem, work 60 hours and get paid for 40, or get fired.
Then there is the commission structure where the company pays the worker nothing. Yet it requires the worker to charge the customer 6 points on every loan. The section 32 requirements (federal guides for predatory lending) were a benchmark to touch not the limit that can't be exceeded in both companies. That's front end only, the back end can be equally as profitable and the company kept all of the yield. Believe me there was a lot of "yield spread" in those loans. Note the settlement mention in the article linked regarding unfair and predatory lending?
Wonder why they closed? The only answer has to be because they weren't making enough money.
How is it possible to not profit if you charge 6+ points per loan? Well, apparently according to a guy who interviewed in my office it was because "managers weren't allowed to fire people who didn't make their numbers." Hmm.
Go figure.
posted by Possum at 07:19
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