The "Dead Horse Theory" is a satirical metaphor that illustrates how some individuals, institutions, corporations, and even nations handle persistent, problems, that due to their limited perspective appear unsolvable. Instead of facing reality, they cling to justifying their actions while denying any viable alternative means of resolution. The core idea is simple: if you realize you're riding a dead horse, the most sensible thing to do is dismount and move on with a new option.

No matter how much you poke, kick, yell at, or pull the reigns, the dead horse is never getting up.

In practice, the opposite often happens, as those in positions of authority are often arrogant, narcissistic, and limited with regards to the flexibility of their thinking. They convince themselves that they can do no wrong, and they stand beside the dead horse believing it will come back to life because they command it to do so.

Instead of abandoning the dead horse, people take actions such as:

• Buying a new saddle for the horse.
• Improving the horse's diet, despite it being dead.
• Changing the rider instead of addressing the real problem.
• Firing the caretaker and hiring someone new, hoping for a different outcome.
• Holding meetings to discuss ways to increase the dead horse's speed.
• Creating committees or task forces to analyze the dead horse problem from every angle. These groups work for months, compile reports, and ultimately conclude the obvious: the horse is dead.
• Justifying efforts by comparing the horse to other similarly dead horses, concluding that the issue was a lack of training.
• Proposing training programs for the horse, which increases expenditure.
• Redefining the concept of "dead" to convince themselves that the horse still has potential just as long as they keep doing what has failed repeatedly.

No matter how big they are, or the extent of their resources, the group or individual must one day accept that Mr. Ed is dead and take alternative action that if done earlier would have saved them a lot of stress and money.

This theory highlights how strict-minded people and organizations, like accountants and bankers, prefer to deny reality that might make them uncomfortable, and how they prefer to stick to the pigeon-holing of what they know. This often results in the wasting of time, resources, and effort on ineffective solutions that they try repeatedly in slightly different ways to attain similar results, instead of acknowledging the problem and making smarter, more effective decisions. The brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station, and the boards of directors of their con-game collaborators at Verico Financial Group Inc. and HomeEquity Bank rely on the trust of seniors and their adult children to sell the CHIP Reverse Mortgage. This is especially true for HomeEquity Bank, as that is the only product they sell. Regardless, these supposed 'trustworthy financial professionals' simply do not appear able to understand or accept that after two and a half years of our reporting to tens of thousands of people, they cannot silence this story by unethically censoring our social media, by trying to erase the truth from the search engines, by threatening us with legal action that they clearly had no intention of ever filing with any court, or by threatening to default on our mortgage.

We are not the ones who are afraid to take our evidence to a court of law, which short of agreeing to our repeated requests for an interview, appears to be their only true way out of this mess of their own creation.

Every day, for more than a year, a group of lawyers or analysts, or whoever, come to our various websites searching for something . . . anything . . . that they think they can use against us. Then, they come back again the next day, and the day after that, and again on Thursday, ad nauseam, and we sincerely hope that one day, maybe soon, maybe later, they might finally realise that we are exactly what we present ourselves to be; a charitable, not-for-profit community media service that donates all services to local charities, fellow not-for-profits, and benevolent community groups. Apparently, given the repetitive nature of their actions, they are incapable of understanding how the public will perceive any further attacks by a Schedule 1 Canadian Chartered Bank that supported loan sharks who were defrauding their senior and veteran clientele that is now trying to silence the truth by threatening to default on the mortgage of the people they helped defraud. This of course comes after people learn of the censorship of both social media and the content of our website, the vacuous anonymous threat of Supreme Court scorned abusive SLAPP civil action, and the fact that the target of these various attacks is a benevolent, not-for-profit, social enterprise that donates all services to charities, not-for-profits, and benevolent community groups, which at the peak of the pandemic was nominated and voted to the highest levels for the City of Barrie award for altruism, as presented by the Greater Barrie Chamber of Commerce.

The blindsided 'ethical professionals' of the HomeEquity Bank seem incapable of seeing that the public sees them as trying and failing to destroy the very people they should be supporting, if only for their own image.

We understand the rabbit hole syndrome, where somebody makes a mistake, like stealing from their client or supporting those who did, but instead of trying to fix it, they dig deeper, and often drag others in with them in a vain attempt to hide. That might have worked for these corrupt corporations a couple of decades ago, but the uber rich do not control the media now like they did then, or at least not the online non-mainstream outlets like Five Points Media and those with whom we are connected. They defrauded a benevolent media company that has at their disposal all of the tools and all of the skills needed to reach tens of thousands of people, as we have done, resulting in massive losses for the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station, and at least a good hit against the bottom line of their collaborators at Verico Financial Group Inc. and HomeEquity Bank. They could have evaded all of that, and any future damage from our continued reporting, by simply refunding what they stole and apologizing for the 'error' made by the broker. However, they chose instead to sink in their heels and risk it all for a few hundred dollars, as in a letter sent by David Flude to our Producer shortly after we exposed the fraud, the Principal broker of Verico the Mortgage Station 'justified' at least in his own mind, how his broker, Renee Dadswell, with the assistance of her colleague, Lisa Purchase, had committed the indictable offence of usury by charging 198.25% interest and fees on a loan intended for bridge financing:
3) "This short term loan provided to assist you in making your previous mortgage payment obligation, in my opinion was a generous and helpful deal."

Few people today are naive enough to blindly trust any corporation that is dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars of their money, and thanks to Google and the other search engines, they don't have to.

When it comes to Verico the Mortgage Station, and their collaborators at Verico Financial Group Inc. and HomeEquity Bank, they have had multiple opportunities to step up and do the right thing, such as speaking with us on camera about their decisions, but instead, they chose to compel us to warn hundreds of thousands of people through our ongoing reporting, which resulted in many potential victims going somewhere else for their mortgage. This trend was strengthened when people realised that the only collective 'defence' of these multi-million and multi-billion-dollar corporations was to hide in a dark place and hope we just went away. It is simply not normal for multi-million and multi-billion-dollar corporations to be in the slightest bit afraid of a small, not-for-profit, social enterprise community media service that donates all services to charities, not-for-profits, and benevolent community groups, but throughout our more than two years of reporting on these criminal and ethical breaches of trust, that has been fully consistent.

It is solely as a result of his own actions that David Flude is, at best, now half the man he was two years ago, and his cowardice in not being able to deal with this matter has caused a lot of harm to both him and others.

We first started reporting on the criminal and ethical breaches of trust, as committed through the indictable offence of usury, or loan sharking, only because David Flude refused to meet and discuss the crime that was committed by his broker, Renee Dadswell, with the assistance of her colleague Lisa Purchase.

Then, he called on help from his friends W. Mark Squire, the President of CEO of Verico Financial Group Inc. and Steven Ranson, his then counterpart at HomeEquity Bank. Their decision to help cover up and conceal the crime added the crime of Fraudulent Concealment to their repertoire of indictable offences.

At that time, Verico the Mortgage Station had a team of around 25 brokers and agents. This screengrab is from July of 2024, after they had already lost about half a dozen. The company was planning an expansion, they publicly reported sales of around six million dollars a year, and they had recently moved into custom-built offices in Lefroy. Now, their team shows only a dozen brokers and agents, their offices are for sale at what appears to be a spiral asking cost, they have turned the offices meant for the expansion into apartments to generate cashflow, and now that they are only working with half the team they had just two years ago, we can speculate without malice that their income has been reduced proportionately, to about three million dollars a year.

There is no other tangible reason for this decline and fall of a once profitable and respected mortgage brokerage other than people are learning the truth through our reporting and taking their business elsewhere.

It is also obvious that the vultures are now circling in ever increasing numbers, as the position held at the top left side of Google for more than two years, that being the prime spot for when people search their company by name, was occupied when we visited today by not one competitor, but three. We know that many local brokers have been telling prospective clients about our reporting and even linking them to some of our stories. Now, apparently, they no longer feel the need to show any kind of professional courtesy, as clearly most of them now have little doubt regarding who is telling the truth.

The evidence is overwhelming, and the complete lack of response speaks volumes to potential clients, lenders, and other professionals.

It was apparently not difficult to 'motivate' a young detective of the South Simcoe Police Service to omit key evidence and to falsify figures so he could cut a get out of jail free pass after the brokers committing the crime of usury, nor to convince County Councillors to play footsy and to look the other way. It is also not lost on many people, the respective parties included, that neither the South Simcoe Police Service nor the County of Simcoe have ever contested nor even questioned our reporting or evidence.

We imagine that the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station have burnt more than a few official bridges trying to maintain the facade of honesty, while refusing to take responsibility for their criminal and ethical abuses.

Our reporting, that this triad of multi-million and multi-billion-dollar corporations have refused to acknowledge or contest, continues to reach prospective clients every day, regardless of how many times we update our content. Today on Google, the official website for Verico the Mortgage Station has been reduced to page one number four, while our fully supported reporting is just a blink below, at number six. Any prospective client looking for them will now definitely find the uncontested truth as told by us.

The listings will likely change when those at Verico the Mortgage Station learn we have reported about their humiliation, but the screengrab doesn't lie, no matter how much they have to pay to recover their 'dignity'.

Regardless of the decline and fall of Verico the Mortgage Station, the board of directors for Verico Financial Group Inc. and HomeEquity Bank continue to ride the dead horse, to an estimated cost of about 78 million dollars a year in lost opportunities, as they apparently lack the vision to see that they are following the same trail to damnation. They are much larger and can last longer, but for as long as they saddle up to the ill-conceived and ego driven plans of a man who is clearly lost in the woods, they will continue to lose money, like drips of water into a bucket.

No stable person perpetuates actions that have cost him $3 million a year and everything he has worked to build, and no competent bank follows such a fool to the edge of the world where the only escape is to jump.

All we have ever asked for is an interview at which point Katherine Dudtschak and W. Mark Squire would be asked to rebuke our evidence. If they have done nothing wrong, there is no reason why this would scare them so deeply. Through the self-serving assistance of other brokers who work with other lenders, the truth of our allegations is spreading throughout the industry. This is also partially due to our decision to loop many of the competitors into correspondence with Katherine Dudtschak and Jo Taylor, President and CEO of the Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan, which owns the bank. Of course, so far, the only reply we have received is a threat to default on our mortgage, which we have openly challenged the HomeEquity Bank to do, as then we can force this matter to court, which is where we have always wanted the evidence to speak for itself before a learned, impartial Justice of the High Court. We also do not need our broadcast quality studios, nor our other state-of-the-art facilities to update this website, to do research, to record interviews in the field, or to edit our videos. All we need is a good laptop and the skills nobody can take away. Simply put, all they will accomplish through such lame and pathetic threats is to ensure this story is told for as long as they make it necessary.

It costs us less than ten cents a day to host this website, and we need to invest only twenty minutes a week in updates to maintain our status on Google; however, between the cost of lost opportunity and their investment in hours of 'research', the exposure of the truth is costing these corrupt corporations a great deal more.