To whom it may concern,
I am a current employee at Quicken Loans. Just to give you a quick backround, I was born and raised in Arizona and have spent most of my life in sales, mostly automotive. I have been at Quicken Loans for just over a year and can honestly say its the worst job I have ever had.
I can honestly say that this is a company that is owned, ran, and managed by crooks. Before I get to our illegal daily practices and crooked ownership, I want to start with some of the common practices of the 2 managers that run the call center that I work at in Arizona. Their names are TIM BIRKMEIER and MATT STOFFER. J
Ust to start, these are 2 of the most fowl mouthed managers that I have ever worked for in my entire life. Whether its comments derogatory towards woman or racists jokes aimed towards hispanics and african-american clients, there actions and speech are appalling.
I can't speak for all of the Quicken Loan call centers, but I do know what goes on in this Arizona sweat shop. TIM and MATT work their 150 loan officers at our site about 60-75 hours per week, and the company does NOT pay overtime, but that labor is mandatory to keep your job. I have copies of schedules that show 10-12 days, 6 days a week. Although they do have the Fair Labor Act poster hung in 3 different spots at the site, I think someone has forgotten to read them thuroughly. But its not as if they hide it, MATT and TIM are quite open about the fact that they want you at work from 8-8 and to work through your lunch hour.
Not only does TIM and MATT screw their employees, but we are also trained to screw our customers. BEWARE, if you are a customer or soon to be a customer of Quicken Loans, please double think your decision. I will be the first to admit that I don't have alot of mortgage experience, but what we are trained to do, I know is wrong. Besides our base salary that we are paid, we are also paid on premium of the loans we sell, (which is how high we can jack up the customers rate, how much extra money in points we can charge them as well, and if we can convince them to take an adjustable mortgage instead of a fixed). So the higher the rate and fees we give the customer, the more we get paid. How are we trained to do that you ask? TIM and MATT put it by saying "find the low-level clients that you can make your money off of". They have never said it in whole site meetings, but in smaller team meetings I have heard both MATT and TIM say things like, "If your dealing with a redneck from the country or a "*bleep*" from the city, you need to make sure their rates and fees are much higher, thats where you make your money. But if its an educated, rich "*bleep*" from the suburbs, we may not be able to make as much money off the loan. (The two bleeps were racial slurs often used at the office at Quicken Loans). Isn't that why the mortgage industry is so screwed up? How can 100 different people with the same loan, same assests, and same credit score, be given 100 different rates and fee structures. Also, on the loans that we do give the borrowers much higher fees and rates and adjustables, MATT and TIM make sure that we don't fill in the race/ethinicity section at the end of the application, so it doesn't look like we are over charging or screwing one race or class of people vs another. Which in fact is exactly what we are trained to do.
Also, Quicken Loans makes money off of what we call our "Good Faith Deposit". It is a non-refundable $500 charge to your credit card that is used to make sure the client is serious about doing business. This is a complete scam. We are trained, even if their is no loan that we can do, the customer doesn't own a house, or they call us up for a loan we don't provide, we take $500, period. Thats where most of the money and profit of the company comes from. I stopped taking deposits shortly after I knew what I was doing, but then was quickly repremanded by TIM and MATT, and my job shortly threatened thereafter if I didn't continue the deposit process. We are trained to lie and promise customers anything to earn there business. We are told to tell the customers that we will do a free loan for them next time they use us, even thought we may be charging them $10,000 to do the loan now. Plus another $10,000 to do the loan the second time, because we can't do free loans. It's all a flat out lie, and a flat out scam!
But despite all this, Quicken Loans was voted the number 2 place to work by Fortune Magazine, in all of the USA... How? I have to call CNN, which I believe owns Fortune Magazina and find out. Maybe its becasue its owned by Dan Gilbert, and his Michagen State cronies. This is a man that was arrested for illigal gambling and stealing peoples money, but yet he owns the 15th biggest mortgage company in the USA... Go Figure. Maybe its because the entire upper management of the company consists of Michigen State alumni, and old college buddies. Maybe its becasue they will only hire employees that this would be their first job, and have had no previous employment. It's easier to run a sweat shop when your just out of high school and or college and don't know any better. For all these people know, 75 hours is normal to them.
And last but not least, you probably guessed it. How many jobs do you think TIM and MATT had before joining Quicken Loans? You guessed it, a combined total of NONE. Oh well, next time I hear one of them get of the phone, I always picture them saying "Would you like fries with that mortgage"?
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