Complaint Review: First Guarantee Mortgage - Saratoga Springs New York

During the years I worked at FGM in Saratoga Springs (I was working during your dealings with them) I have witnessed almost unspeakable criminal activity. I was hired as a "Loan Officer", off the street, with no experience after answering a newspaper ad. The term "Loan Officer" is an outright lie. These people are nothing more than telemarketers. There is no license needed to work at FGM. David Silipigno runs the show at FGM. Although he is technically just a consultant. I have personally witnessed David using cocaine on several occasions. He is a cocaine addict, with a LOT of money. He drives a rare black Porsche car. He sexually harasses women under his hire (including attractive women who are under age 18) a fact I know to be true by my own observations/spying on his inter-office communications). As a "Loan Officer"/telemarketer I was instructed by my superiors to lie to my customers, in no uncertain terms. The scenario you described was done to trick you, intentionally. The lies told to customers were a subject of humor for some of the "Loan Officers" standing around the water cooler. The more blatant and ridiculous, the funnier. A substantial minority of FGM's "Loan Officers" are drug addicts. But most are just hard working people who got caught up in David's dream. The money was good, too good. David set it up so that he couldn't be touched by the law. If someone got caught lying to a customer, the employee went down, not FGM. In a twisted way, he is a genius. But he has absolutely no conscience, no remorse for exploiting peoples ignorance. He currently resides in Lake George New York. There he enjoys a work free life as a multi-multi- millionaire. With the dirty money from FGM He will never need to work again. I hope you burn in hell David Silipigno!

Blame blame blame blame blame. You say you had "good credit"- everyone thinks they do. You don't- or you wouldn't have been in a wilmington deal. And NO- FGM does not put "everyone" into wilmington- they are actually one of the LEAST profitable for the employee because they cap back and front end points well below sections 32. And it is NOt FGM's dfault that your deal was bundled, securitized and sold on the secondary market- that is standard practice. You are a moron. This is your own fault

Hi I am a mortgage broker also, and live in Florida now. I am however, a consumer advocate and huge fan of ripoff report. As far as your 'friend' goes, -some friend. As a loan officer , he should have told you there is no 30year fixed conforming loan with those ridiculous pre pay terms. Sounds like he got you an option arm , which comes with an adjustable rate rider and pre pay. even if they converted it to a fixed product, the huge pre pay is so they can make big bucks selling your loan on the secondary market. Any legitimate conforming lender would have got you a 5.5 fixed back then with good credit for 30 years no prepay. So your friend works at a sub sub sub prime lender, which Willmington is, and in fact they are nothing but a professional middleman who sells these goof loans then hawks the loan on the market. your friend knew this -and ripped you off cold. I am sorry. I want you to know though, sucessful brokers tend to be honest. We who make a decent living would never stick u into a bulshite loan that wasnt really in your best interest in the long run. I have never done a willmington loan, and never will. Nor have i ever sold some retarded 5 year prepay. What if u decide to move or otherwize? Happy with the rate willmington got you? Then i can assure you that a conforming lender could have done better, because Willmington is sub prime all the way. Sub prime lenders do NOT have the best rates ever. Im sorry about your prepay, but if u signed it, then its yours. I do agree however, that the guy from title who comes out to close your loan should have someone else come too to be there to explain it to you and is on your side alone. Isnt this what your 'friend' should have been doing for you?

ELIABETH- PPP ADVICE YES,I posted my response before your 2nd response came through. thank you for your PPP advice. I also got another BLAME response besides yours earlier, and yes I was upset, and felt perhaps I made a mistake posting my complaint on this websight. I thought it was more of a help/advocacy type site, as oppossed to a chat-like forum.but thanks again for the ppp advice.

Kristina, If you actually read all of my second posting I'm pretty sure I addressed the prepayment penalty issue. I made a few suggestions on what you can do, possibly my second response wasn't up when you replied or maybe you just missed it. I would suggest you consider taking a few deep breaths as you attempt to solve your problem. Not to many folks are going to listen or want to help you with that attitude.

THANKS for the response. Now were cooking with gas! This is more of the kind of advice/suggestions I thought I would get by filing a complaint on this websight. we have looked into the statues for CT regading the max. terms for PPP, that are allowable. As far as I understand, there are separate regulations depending on if its considered a first or second loan.while a refinance, it says first on the agreement. so, that being said, they can stick you with PPP for 5 year max. I think the 5% is also the max rate charged. If this were a second mortgage, they can hold have PPP for a 3 year max and a 1% I believe. A more favorable penalty for a 2nd mortgage. I'm going to call the CT attry. gen. today for further explaination.I'm also going to contact the CT & NY banking commission as well. don't think we'll be refinancing again anytime soon. thanks.

FORMER BROKER< thanks for assigning some more blame, I feel victimized all over again. I have acknowledged the fact that we didn't do our homework. if we were considering refinancing, we should've researched various options, and hopefully have found a better lender to do business with. i also agree after this experience that friends and business dealings aren't a good mix. I also agree that we shouldn't have felt pressured to close on a loan with questions/issues not handled to our satisfaction. As to your point why the loan officer wasn't at the closing: I am in another state than the state FGM works out of. I don't believe they have actual business in my state, although they are obviously liscened in my state. I guess this is why there is no one besides the notary, at the closing. I think this is standard practice with FGM, not to be present at your closing. I guess you must have worked at a more reputable brokerage institution, if you claim you were present at all closings to asnswers questuions and explain what your signig your name too. I wish we had that experience, maybe there wouldn't have been a closing and things would've turned out differntly for us. Have I flogged myself enough? I assumed enough BLAME? while your points are well taken, tell me something I haven't learned at this point. I can't undo the way we handled things now, but I am trying to look ahead at how I may rectify/remedy thie PREPAY PENALTY issue. so, If you actually have some constructive advice as to how I can move forward with getting the penalty removed that would be HELPFUL. Instead of BLAMING THE CONSUMER, (who came to this websight looking for HELP and SUGGESTIONS as to how I can REMEDY this PREPAY PENALTY issue) the bottom line is that lending/mortgage companies like FGM/WILMINGTON FINANCE need to be stopped from continuing such PREDATORY MORTGAGE practices. This is why many states are trying to enact strichter laws in these areas, such as rates/fees charged and disclosures being made clearer etc..

Kristina - As far as removing the prepayment penalty there's really not much you can do. IF your state has a law against the PPP then you may be able to do something about that through the attorney general's office. I frankly don't know about the PPP laws in Conneticut as I am licensed to practice in the midwestern states and I stay away from states that I don't know the lending laws like the back of my hand. I would suggest you contact your attorney general and possibly do some internet searching about predatory lending laws in your state. You MAY get some help there but most likely you are stuck in that loan until the PPP is up. While I understand your frustration with your loan officer and your mortgage holder please keep in mind that an educated consumer is the best customer. Next time you refinance, look around and consider spending the extra money to have an attorney check out your loan documents or come to the closing with you. There are A LOT of unethical loan officers out there and the only way to guarantee you don't get taken for a ride is to educate yourself. Best of luck and let us know how it turns out.

I am the consumer that filed the prepay penalty complaint against FIRST GUARANTEE FINANCE. thank you for your response. but I think the point here is to offer constructive suggestions.you state your a mortgage broker. By chance you aren't a wilmington finance employee are you? I am rather offended by your critical response. I feel your suggesting that my statement that we have "good credit" in not an honest statement.while learning after the fact that FGM seems to cater to a majority offolks with poor/fair credit, we didn't know that when we chose to do business with them. I pointed out that we did get a favorable rate. If our loan officer/friend lied about our credit being good as well, would we still have gotten such a good interest rate? As for your statement that if our credit was good, why did our loan officer assign us with WILMINGTON FINANCE? well if you have any insider info. as a broker, than you might have heard or know, that FIRST GUARANTEE MORTGAGE routinely assigns almost all loanns to wilmington finance. this is according to our loan officer. then it is also routine for the loan to be "flipped" to MOREQUITY. instead of questioning if my credit was really "good" or bad, the rebuttal should've focused on the point of an institution lying and telling us there would be no prepay penalty, and then sneak it in later?! we feel foolish enough, and are very embarrassed that we were so trusting of our FGM loan offficer to be honest with us. we were very ill informed about refinancing, which is why we thought we could count on a friend of 20 yrs. to be honest, and look out for our best interests. I agree with you that our loan officer lied to us, and knew there would be a prepay penalty attatched to our loan. but I think he hoped (correctly) that we wouldn't look for or find the perpay rider added to our pile of paperwork. I know if we confronted him now, he would probably deny any/all knowledge. he has become a well trained FGM employee. But at this point why debate credit, and if he lied about the penalty. why can't you offer constructived suggestion/advice as to how consumers can stop that decietful practice, and further how a consumer in our position can possibly get this penalty removed?

As a former mortgage broker I would like to touch on a few things here.... 1. Why was your broker not AT your closing with you? If this was someone who was really a friend they should have attended the closing and made sure you were clear on anything that you signed. When I did loans, I NEVER would let my customer close without me being there - if I say I'm trying to look out for their financial best interests then I'd darn well better back that up by being at the closing. 2. While there MAY have been pressure by the closer to close the loan (I personally have never seen this) why did you let them pressure you into anything? This is YOUR mortgage, YOUR house and YOUR money. I don't care if it takes 4 hours (and yes I've seen closings take that long) you should NEVER sign anything without a clear understanding of what it is and what it means. When I used to do mortgages, the closer would go over each document page by page and explain what it meant. If your closer did not do that why didn't you ask? While I sympathize with anyone who is in a crappy loan such as yours I think you need to not point fingers at FGM/Wilmington but at your friend and yourself. While this may have been a friend of yours you should bear in mind for some people business is very much separate from friendship and just because its someone you know doesn't mean you should go in blind. ALWAYS look at what you are getting into and if you don't understand it or it's not what you expected then just don't do it. Its that simple. Best of luck to you.

Laurie, I am a mortgage broker and believe me your "friend" knew about the prepay prior to the closing.You stated that you had good credit so you may want to talk to your friend anf find out why he put you through Wilmington as they are a non-conforming lender which means that they are generally for people with credit issues.A conforming lender generally does not require a prepay penalty.