Wow. The story from "X-Employee-Farmington Hills, Michigan" sure rings true for me.
I did Notary Signing Services for Ameriquest for a couple of months. During those two months, here's what I saw:
All but 3 out of 12 account managers left (fired or quit) during those two months. This is the highest turnover I have ever seen in ANY company, in ANY industry. This sky-high turnover virtually assures that any customer making the mistake of signing with Ameriquest will never see their AE again.
The manager was also fired, for approving a string of "dirty loans." This included doctoring loans that didn't meet approval initially.
All "account executives" (nothing but salespeople, hereon known as "AEs") were expected to work 60-70 hours per week. This included 3 hours of telephone solicitation per day during what they call "Power Hour."
Everyone who worked there was between 21-35 and had little or no previous experience in the industry.
All employees were under tremendous pressure to sell, sell, sell. They were pounded with multiple daily e-mails and weekly meetings to enforce this message. Weeklong visits from the Regional Manager, to further enforce this message and look over the shoulders of the AEs all day long, were common.
Account Executives failing to sell a single loan in their first month were generally fired.
About 1/3 of the loans I helped sign never went through. The reasons ranged from paperwork errors (from inexperienced AEs) to one Loan Processor who simply LOST the paperwork on a couple of loans, to the same processor sitting on loan paperwork for so long that the customer rescinded (and she still works there!).in these cases, countless hours of the customers' time were completely wasted.
I was never paid for my services for any of the loans that failed, although they are legally obligated to pay me. I have also not been paid for a couple of loans that DID fund! I will probably have to use a lawyer to pry this money out of them.
The current manager, an inept boob, was powerless to help me get paid, but at least he tried, or gave the appearance of trying.
When one of the AEs went to bat for me, trying to pry my money out of Corporate, they cut me off from doing any more signings. I guess they only want Notaries who will shut up and work for free half of the time.
In defense of the AEs, most of the "lies" they tell are from inexperience: They are saying things that they are told to say during their training. Most of them, being new, have no idea that they are working for an unethical company at first, and that the idea that they can make "over $100,000 a year" (Ameriquest tells this utter crap to every prospective employee) is nothing more than an empty promise.
This is one of those companies that is just plain rotten from the top down. They treat their customers, employees and vendors with equal and incredible disrespect.
I feel bad about the people whose signatures I witnessed getting ripped off. That's because, unlike AmeriQuest, I have at least some degree of ethical standards.
Ameriquest should be avoided at all costs.
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