Complaint Review: First Guarantee Mortgage

This letter is extremely unfortunate and has been written by a disgruntled former employee named Billy Chow. Mr. Chow was terminated from FGM for several violations of his employment contracts. Mr. Chow's new venture has been very unsuccessful coupled with our law suit against him has caused him to make these outlandish lies and slanderous allegations. It's always unfortunate when someone is experiencing their own misery they choose to try and gain as much company as possible.

FGM converses with tens of thousands of customers on a daily basis and has only a minimal amount of consumer complaints which have all been successfully satisfied. Its principals are on record and are of the highest quality and active members in the mortgage industry as well as pillars in the community. All individuals associated with FGM perform their charitable activities as a means of giving back to the community and nothing more.

The lies written by Mr. Chow require no response. The company has been through many audits and passed with flying colors and we deal with every customer with the utmost respect and handle their issues with care and to their satisfaction. We will be adding to Mr. Chows law suit that he file a full retraction of these lies to go along with remedying his other violations.

We hope Mr. Chow can turn his life around and not continue to try and blame others for all his problems. It's our hope that with some maturity he can develop into a meaningful part of society.

I am an ex-employee of First Guarantee Mortgage. I worked there for about 15 months and I know all the lies and misleading business pratices of this company. Unfortunately, I would like to keep my anyominity because they are currently sueing ex-employees for speaking out against the company, as a violation of our business contracts. Since they have made so much money ripping people off, they can sue anyone they want. How can an average person like me spend tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend myself? If I don't spend the money on a response to their lawsuits, than they get a summary judgement and win the case.

They will probably rebutt this by stating I am a terminated disgruntled ex-employee. All the rebuttals included in the other articles on this website are actually their managers posing as employees defending a great company. Leah, is actually a sales vice-president. In reality, I made over $100,000 my first year with the company and was to be promoted as their next sales manager. I left because morally, I can't work for such a dispicable company. As you continue to read what I have to say, keep an open and unbiased mindframe and determine for yourself if you want to do business with this company. I will only tell you truths that you can validate from other sources.

Dave Sillipino actually owns the company. He bankrupted National Finance Corporation (NFC) the week before Christmas and laid off 500 employees without Christmas paychecks. He was convicted of numerous banking charges. He has paid back tens of millions in fines and restitutions from the profits of FGM to keep himself out of jail. Every current and past employee is told to tell people that he is just "a consultant". The millions that he has donated to local charity, with great fanfare and press coverage, was actually part of his restitution and sentencing. Do you want to do business with a convicted felon?

Federal RESPA guidelines are very strict in regards to full loan disclosures. I was trained by their managers when I started to tell people not to sign and return these disclosures. In my 15 months with the company, not once did I receive and include a RESPA disclosure package in my loans. We were told to tell our borrowers the disclosures are always wrong and is the "worst case scenario" of closing costs. In reality, their actual costs are substantially higher. Many times, the first time their borrowers see the disclosures are at the closing table, when they are pressured and rushed into signing all 95 pages of their closing packages. They rely on the fact that the huge majority of people will not take the time to scrutinize each and every document.

They tell all their borrowers that all the Pre-pay Finace Charges(PFC) are fully tax deductible. So at the end of the year you can recoup a substantial portion of it back. These includes the origination fee, processing, underwriting, closing & escrow, administrative ... etc. In reality, they are not tax deductiible at all. Check with your CPA.

The loan origination fee is by far the biggest lie. They tell their borrowers that it is a fee charged by the lenders to secure them the lowest possible interest rate based on their credit, income and equity. What a sham! The company keeps 70% and the loan officer gets 30% of these origination fees. Check with Wilmington Finance, Interfirst Lending, Flagstar Bank and Fremont Investment and Loans, these are the only lenders FGM does business with, these lenders get no part of the origination fees. In fact, since FGM is just a broker and not a lender. Legally, they are supposed to disclose this fee as a broker fee, but an "origination fee" is easier to disguise and mislead a borrower with.

I can't begin to tell you how many lies I have heard working at First Guarantee Mortgage. Sadly, in order to make money and to conform to FGM's "sales philosophy", I too have told lies in order to close a loan. It is business as usual at FGM to blatenly lie to get a loan close. We are told never to put anything in writing so that it cannot be proven and their managers are trained to have invisible ear-muffs on so that they have no knowledge of any lies. If you want satisfaction from FGM towards a loan that they closed for you. Simply file a complaint with your respective state's banking department and copy the New York State Banking Department. FGM will be happy to buy out your complaint since they have very deep pockets. It is easier and cheaper for them to pay off an angry consumer than to loose their banking licenses. They more than get rich off the people who don't have the knowledge, the time, or the energy to fight them. They actually turn these complaints around and use it to their advantage. They tell borrowers that they can't please all the people all the time, but when someone does complain, they always resolve it to the customers satisfaction.

In sad conclusion, legally, First Guarantee Mortgage does abide, at least in anything that is proveable, with all the respective state laws in the states they conduct business in. Each state has sectiion 32 and/or part 41 laws which limits the fees that can be charged by mortgage brokers. These fees are often a very liberal percentage of the loan amount. Obviously, the greater your loan amount, the higher these fees can be. Morally, I don't think it is right to charge someone an outragious fee just because it is legally okay to do so. FGM is a predatory lender, so shop around, negogiate your closing fees and do your research to find a better broker or lender. Thank you for reading this and if you happen to be in some type of federal and/or state mortgage compliance capacity, and you wish to know more about First Guarantee Mortgage and Dave Sillipino, please respond to this website and I will be more than glad to discuss this company further with you.