At 02:36, in the wee hours of Saturday, September 28, 2024, we had a visit on our Five Points Media website from a first-time visitor from Oshawa. On the surface this is certainly not uncommon, but this visitor stuck out, because they were not hiding behind a proxy server, they dropped by at the 'too much on my mind to sleep' hour when they really should have been in bed, and they came directly from Google, as if told what to look for. They also only visited one page, about when we flatlined in one email a well-respected lawyer from a prestigious Toronto law firm who threatened to sue us if we did not retract a fully supported story and video about a negligent slumlord who contributed to the untimely death of a disabled man.

"Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall."

We are by no means religious, but sometimes the Bible hits the point. In this case, the quote comes from Proverbs 16:18. It continues: "Better to be lowly in spirit along with the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud." Proud and arrogant are, for us, the best descriptors when thinking about David Flude, the Principal Broker and presumed owner of Verico the Mortgage Station and W. Mark Squire and Katherine Dudtschak, the Presidents and CEOs of Verico Financial Group Inc. and HomeEquity Bank respectively.

These 'ethical financial professionals' committed crimes by loan sharking and fraudulent concealment, and they also evidently believed nobody could touch them, but now they are feeling the weight of public scrutiny.

We did some research about the brokerage industry and ran a rough time correlation with our visitor logs. As we noted a few days ago, first on September 26^th and then again on the 27^th of September, we are now being visited daily, and quite often more than once a day, by people looking for information specifically about the CHIP Reverse Mortgage, which is sold by the HomeEquity Bank. Throughout the past twelve months, ever since we have been helped in our Search Engine Optimization by an anonymous expert, we have seen this pattern expand with regards to Verico the Mortgage Station, as people who saw one of our pages on Google or one of the other search engines reviewed our reports and videos before moving onto another brokerage. That is frankly old news, as the once respected brokerage withers and fades, reducing staff, converting offices built for their expected expansion into apartments to generate cashflow, and struggling to sell their custom-built offices for what they advertise could be converted into affordable housing. We are sure the irony is not lost on many.

Throughout the past year, in ever increasing numbers, potential clients for the CHIP Reverse Mortgage from cities and towns across Canada have been coming to our website looking for the truth about HomeEquity Bank.

According to statistics provided by the mortgage industry, the average first mortgage in Canada is around $400,000.00, from which the broker earns around one percent in commission, or $4,000.00. So, to earn the publicly stated income of $6,000,000.00 the loan sharking brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station had to sell around 1,500 mortgages. For about a year, since the onslaught of the anonymous SEO assistance, we have been averaging, on a exponentially increasing curve, ten 'drive-by' visits per week throughout the year; meaning potential clients for Verico the Mortgage Station came from search engines or our social media posts, visited a page or two or watched a video on our website, and then moved onto another brokerage to do business. This certainly appears to be the reason for the publicly posted decline and fall of Verico the Mortgage Station.

The exponential J-curve demonstrated throughout the past year shows no sign or inverting, as social media posts and shares in mortgage industry Facebook groups enhance the uninhibited escalation of interest.

If only half of those drive-by visitors chose to take their business elsewhere, based on our fully supported and uncontested reporting, Verico the Mortgage Station would have lost five clients per week, worth about $4,000.00 each, totalling $20,000.00, or more than $1,000,000.00 a year. Given that reality, it is little wonder they are now selling their building at a reduced asking price, converting offices to apartments, and peddling their newly constructed customized offices as a viable rooming house. We also know that as far back as October 26, 2023, things were not going well for David Flude, who justified, at least to himself, lying repeatedly to a prospective client who had found our uncontested reporting and evidence by whining "This is my livelihood so it's important to me."

Using that same math, the situation is much worse for the 'see no evil' CHIP Reverse Mortgage vendors at HomeEquity Bank, as they lose much more every time somebody finds our reporting and evidence.

Although not the easiest data to find, statistics on Reverse Mortgages in Canada and the United States calculate the value of a reverse mortgage to the lender, over a ten-year period, to exceed $200,000.00 in interest, plus around $50,000.00 in various fees and administrative costs. So, now that we are drawing considerably more attention on a national level regarding the CHIP Reverse Mortgage, which is the only product sold by HomeEquity Bank, we can show the same drive-by methodology associated with buyers seeking out our fully supported and unchallenged claims regarding the lender's collusion, fraudulent concealment, and total lack of protection for their clients. Based on those same ten driveby clients per week, and saying only half would seek an alternative after viewing our articles and videos, HomeEquity Bank stands to lose about one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars every single week, or more than sixty-two million, five hundred thousand dollars per year in potential income that they would have otherwise earned over the next ten years through a locked-in CHIP Reverse Mortgage. Is there any wonder that at least one of the reverse mortgage lenders is using our reporting to boost the sales of their competing product?

They might be a six-billion-dollar business, but throwing away that kind of money because you are afraid of the evidence of the crimes of a third party brokerage is simply idiotic and our numbers are conservative.

So, is it surprising that the pride of these 'ethical financial professionals' is keeping them up at night, in Oshawa, in Toronto, in Barrie, and in a great many other places, especially as the HomeEquity Bank is reported repeatedly by former employees to be a chew them up and spit them out kind of profit driven business? Steven Ranson, the now retired former President and CEO of HomeEquity Bank should never have aligned the company he commanded with loan sharks, but he chose to do so, and Katherine Dudtschak chose to take the ball and run with it, when common sense dictates, she should have taken the opportunity to do the honourable thing and take responsibility as the new company commander.

Now, because of two bad decisions, HomeEquity Bank is losing out on hundreds of potential opportunities, and as our reach and audience continue to grow, they will end up hemorrhaging millions for no good reason.

As we have noted in a previous report, both Verico Financial Group Inc. and HomeEquity Bank appear to have broken up with the loan sharking brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station, as most references to the brander and all references to the lender appear to have been stripped from the website for the brokerage, which is also losing agents and brokers faster than Trump loses independent voters. Regardless, both of those apathetic corporations knowingly and with criminal intent assisted the loan sharks to cover up their crime of usury by doing NOTHING to assist their shared client who was defrauded while buying a CHIP Reverse Mortgage from brokers working under the banner of Verico. It does not matter who, or how many co-conspirators they throw 'under the bus', Verico Financial Group Inc. and HomeEquity Bank will continue to be held accountable and will continue to lose opportunities from clients who are finding the truth in ever-increasing numbers, at least until they step up and take responsibility for their many 'errors'.

Honest and ethical professionals do not hide, nor seek escape by throwing their collaborators 'under the bus', and people of good character who are truly remorseful for their 'mistakes' do not hide behind false pride.

We have never asked anything of the representatives of Verico the Mortgage Station, Verico Financial Group Inc., or HomeEquity Bank, other than an on-camera interview, through which they could explain their side of the story. In fact, in an email dated September 9, 2023, we offered as follows:

"I am writing today to reiterate our open invitation to all of you to take part in a recorded interview regarding our public allegations about your companies. Doing so will allow you to refute our evidence and present any counter documentation you might possess - If you can debunk our allegations on camera, using tangible evidence, we will cancel the production. We cannot be fairer than that."

This offer was made after the Mortgage Station committed fraud by usury, and Verico Financial Group Inc. and HomeEquity Bank ignored fully supported complaints, and they collaborated to protect the loan sharks.

This fear of our experience in court, where we hold a 100% success rate in being able to debunk and defeat false claims of libel and contemptuous Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPP) lawsuits, as well as the weight of our evidence is why these multi-million and multi-billion-dollar financial corporations have done NOTHING for more than two years but hide from a small, not-for-profit, social enterprise, community media service that donates all services to any charity, not-for-profit, or benevolent group that asks for their assistance.

The weakened financial status of Verico the Mortgage Station should be a sign to the corrupt collaborating corporations that their potential clients are finding our reporting, they understand the threat, and based on our fully supported stories and videos, they want nothing to do with loan sharks or those who protect them.