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Verico the Mortgage Station - Loan Sharking in Lefroy
This documentary is being produced to protect often vulnerable seniors from being defrauded.
Our allegations remain 100% uncontested, and have in no way been challenged by any party.
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It is a strange marketing strategy to brand yourself in the public eye as being the local business that syphoned into their greedy pockets the operational resources of a benevolent community social enterprise that helped every charity, not-for-profit, and benevolent community group that asked. However, that is evidently the image desired by David Flude, Renee Dadswell, and Lisa Purchase, the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station, and by association their allies W. Mark Squire, President and Chief Operating Officer, Verico Financial Group Inc. and Yvonne Ziomecki-Fisher, Executive Vice President Marketing and Sales of HomeEquity Bank. Fortunately for them, their plan is working, and that brand is sticking to them like glue.
Maybe next time they can take money from sick kids, the disabled, the infirmed, or injured puppies . . . except, they have already done all that.
Although not factually accurate, fear is the reason elephants are fabled to hide from a mouse. In this case, the trepidation being displayed by David Flude, Renee Dadswell, and Lisa Purchase, the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station, and their allies W. Mark Squire, President and Chief Operating Officer, Verico Financial Group Inc. and Yvonne Ziomecki-Fisher, Executive Vice President Marketing and Sales of HomeEquity Bank, is a self-protective response to evidence they know we have that proves both individual and collective criminal and ethical violations of public trust.
Why else would these multi-million and multi-billion-dollar corporations be so afraid of a small, not-for-profit, social enterprise, community media service?
The online media sharing tools we signed up for on April 17, 2024, see details on this Latest News page, include an analysis tool for reviewing the content reviewed and the online journey of those who visit our website. We copied over the data from our visitor analysis tools that have for several months kept track of who visited where, for how long, and where they went from there. The results were interesting, but not overly surprising.
The first recommendation by the AI tool was to produce more of the longer and more detailed videos.
We were quite surprised last night to be advised by our AI-driven online analysis tools that our videos on YouTube had suddenly jumped in rank quite dramatically, and also with regards to searches for ‘Verico the Mortgage Station’ and other keywords and phrases. On Thursday, when we first experimented with the tools, we ranked below the posts for the Loan Sharks of Lefroy, as either they have been posting anywhere and everywhere, or they have hired an SEO consultant, or both.
Last night, our videos jumped to top positions at two, four, and five, second only to their paid advertising.
There is now a rapidly growing social media-spawned political movement being generated and perpetuated by struggling Canadians who are tired of paying more, getting less, and being told to simply accept being screwed without complaining.
That is why our exposé documentary about mortgage fraud against seniors in Canada is so perfectly timed.
Posters like this one, targeted specifically at Loblaws, are popping up all over Toronto and in other major cities, as activists are educating the public about the empowerment provided by being part of a movement to draw attention to the fraud of inflated food prices.
Last night, in a post by a very respected Simcoe County charitable organisation that helps the homeless community, the leader noted the following about our Producer. The public post can be found here.
“Heartfelt thanks to our awesome outreach volunteers Ashleigh and John for going above and beyond tonight and staying with our friend at hospital till she felt comfortable. You being there and advocating for her made the difference between her staying and getting the care she needed or leaving the hospital before getting the help she needed. This is how we care for each other. We have a beautiful team!”
An altruist who spends hours in a hospital helping a stranger make it through tough times is hardly how David Flude described him when lying to a client.
We had an interesting weekend of traffic, with new and established visitors coming to our reports and videos from all over Canada. One thing we could not help but notice is that although the iOS operating system is used by about 60% of the mobile online market, more than 92% of our weekend visitors were mobile Apple users . . .
On January 16, 2024, 90 days or exactly three months ago, we released an article about how hundreds of other Verico brokers appeared to have visited our homepage on masse, apparently based on the invitation of their head office at Verico Financial Group Inc. That time period is often used in legal agreements, such as a promise to end this ongoing criminal exposure by a certain date, by whatever means. Essentially, every one of those assumed brokers used the latest iPhone running the most recent iOS.
We are still here, which could be why we are once again drawing so much attention from those with a vested interest in this story.
Charles Caleb Colton, an English cleric and writer, is often cited for his quotes and observations of the human condition. One such pearl of knowledge is this 19th-century reflection:
“The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.”
The general consensus, including that of a business banker at one of Canada’s Big Five Banks, is that David Flude, Renee Dadswell, and Lisa Purchase, the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station, and their allies W. Mark Squire, President and Chief Operating Officer, Verico Financial Group Inc. and Yvonne Ziomecki-Fisher, Executive Vice President Marketing and Sales of HomeEquity Bank, are making fools of themselves by perpetuating the need for our ongoing and growing exposure of their ongoing criminal activity and unethical abuses of trust.
Psychology has shown that people make a conscious choice to be one of the good guys in a story or one of the villains. The decision is governed by a basic understanding of ethics. The classic western comedy "Rustlers' Rhapsody" asked the question ‘what would happen if two white-hatted 'good' cowboys were on opposing sides’, but that seldom happens. In any story of conflict, such as our exposé documentary, there are thieves, liars, loan sharks, con artists, or other despicable villains, and then there are people of conscience working to stop them from harming others or taking advantage of more victims.
This wheelchair is a perfect metaphor for discussing the relevant roles in this story.
The question has been asked why are we so diligently pursuing David Flude, Renee Dadswell, and Lisa Purchase, the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station, and their allies W. Mark Squire, President and Chief Operating Officer, Verico Financial Group Inc. and Yvonne Ziomecki-Fisher, Executive Vice President Marketing and Sales of HomeEquity Bank for committing the crime of loan sharking, turning a blind eye to the criminal abuse of a client who is a senior and veteran, or then trying to cover it up, especially as the outstanding amount from the crime is not a high dollar value.
We think that if you understand ethics,
the first reason should be obvious to everybody.
Yesterday we received a message from an unidentified man who said he was doing some research on buying a house in Simcoe County when he found our fully supported reports and videos. “I thought journalists like you were a thing of the past. Good job!!! You probably saved my family a lot of trouble and money. It takes balls to take on these lenders but what the hell is stopping the police and local council from finding you dead in a ditch? You must know some powerful people.”
Our first thought was a threat, but we backtracked it to a five-year-old account based in the GTA.
The old idiom “hold his feet to the fire” alludes to an ancient test of character that, sadly, David Flude, Renee Dadswell, and Lisa Purchase, the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station, and their allies W. Mark Squire, President and Chief Operating Officer, Verico Financial Group Inc. and Yvonne Ziomecki-Fisher, Executive Vice President Marketing and Sales of HomeEquity Bank, appear to be failing in a very public and humiliating way.
Everybody knows that it is only those who are ashamed of their actions who wallow in the darkness.
We have heard some of the stories that are reportedly being told about us by David Flude, Renee Dadswell, and Lisa Purchase, the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station, and their allies W. Mark Squire, President and Chief Operating Officer, Verico Financial Group Inc. and Yvonne Ziomecki-Fisher, Executive Vice President Marketing and Sales of HomeEquity Bank. We say let the evidence show the truth.
We are not the ones who are hiding,
nor are we afraid to present our evidence in a court of law.
Why would several multi-million and multi-billion-dollar corporations be so obviously afraid of a small, not-for-profit, social enterprise media company that they will threaten to sue us as a method of oppressing the truth, but are terrified by the prospect of balancing their threats and any evidence they might have against our fully supported allegations in a court of law?
The innocent has no reason to fear judgment, nor the scrutiny of their evidence.
People make mistakes, and sometimes they unknowingly break the law. However, the moment they perpetuate the crime, it is no longer a mistake, and they have chosen a path of immorality and unethical behaviour that can ultimately lead to self-destruction. In law school, the example is given that a doctor is called while in a restaurant for an emergency procedure that only they can perform, and when they cannot find the waiter to pay, they simply leave. If they come back later, explain the emergency and pay the bill, no charges would ever be laid. However, if they remember the bill, and have the opportunity to pay it, but choose not to, then they are a criminal as they have demonstrated ‘mens rea’ or ‘a guilty mind’.
On March 27, 2024, our Producer was in downtown Barrie, meeting with a representative of one of Canada’s 'Big Five' banks to discuss short-term investments that would help to strengthen the larger part of the budget we are due to receive forthwith to complete research and production of this documentary about mortgage fraud in Canada. It did not take long for the subject of the production to be raised or for the jaw of the banking professional to hit the floor. The next words out of their mouth were: “Is this person mentally ill? I mean you don’t let something like that be told about you. If it is true, you fix it, and if not, you silence it.”
On March 15, we sent an email to all of the brokers listed as providers of funding for the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station. This action is fully ethical and legal, especially as the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station continue to illegally withhold money that they stole from our producer through usury, or loan sharking, and they have chosen to hide for more than a year and a half, and to not reply to his emails even though, by their own admission, they are legally and ethically required to do by the regulations of the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA). Many of the lenders read the email immediately, and several forwarded the content to as many as twenty others within their company. We are only guessing, but this response would suggest that the lenders are growing tired of the excuses and misinformation being relayed by the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station and supported by their allies W. Mark Squire, President and Chief Operating Officer, Verico Financial Group Inc. and Yvonne Ziomecki-Fisher, Executive Vice President Marketing and Sales of HomeEquity Bank.
According to real estate statistics, the average mortgage in Ontario for first-time buyers is around $425,000.00. The average commission that a broker earns is between 0.5% and 1.2% of the total mortgage amount. So, for purposes of simplifying the math, we will average that to 0.8%. That means each mortgage sold is worth to the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station approximately $3,400.00. Verico the Mortgage Station claims sales of $6,000.000.00, meaning they sell approximately 1765 mortgages per year. So, if we go with the lower number for lost opportunities, eight losses per week would represent 416 mortgage sales per year which represents 23.57% of sales, or $1,414,200.00.
That, by anybody’s standard, is a lot of money to lose just to avoid having to testify in court or present your evidence on camera, unless of course, you are guilty of the allegations, and potentially more.
How low does a person need to sink into depravity to 'justify', at least in their mind, cheating seniors, and veterans, and stealing resources from charities? Also, what is missing from the morality of anybody who becomes an accomplice after the fact by helping that person who is so devoid of conscience? Most people are not so morally bankrupt, as they have ethical guardrails in place that compel them to fix or at least accept the wrongs they know they have done to others.
This is especially true when a high level of professional trust and ethics are issues of concern.
Most large companies hold an annual convention where their top salespeople and other movers and shakers meet to congratulate each other for another ‘best year ever’ and give each other awards that mean nothing to anybody but their inner circle. This year, it seems the brokers who work under the banner of Verico Financial Group Inc. met in Barrie, Ontario, on the homepage of our website. If not, maybe it was their competition?
Since Friday, January 12, 2024, we have been visited by several hundred new visitors from across the country, and we have now analyzed some of the data to better understand who most of them were.
We got a bit of a surprise yesterday when we received a call from somebody identifying themself as a producer of social issues reports for a very prominent American media conglomerate. We will not name them here, as this is all very preliminary, and we are very open to saying that the network that is interested is most definitely not our first choice for collaboration, and we told them so.
We are not sure why, but this offer is tripping our ‘Spidey Sense’ and we are hoping to get some feedback from our followers, many of whom have known us and our work for up to 14 years.
On Friday, December 13, 2024, our producer once again wrote to the ‘ethically responsible’ bankers and lenders who provide the funding for the mortgages provided by the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station. We acquired the list from a public posting by Renee Dadswell that we later confirmed through an online post by David Flude. All contact information was published online and was available to the public. Contrary to the whining of an anonymous spewer of flaccid threats, it is neither illegal nor unethical for journalists to do online research, nor to contact people who have a vested interest in learning the truth about those who have abused the rights of others by breaking the law.
If it was, there would be no media, no checks and balances, and no social safeguards against those who abuse others.
We have been asked multiple times to post a synopsis of our reports so people can read an overview of the story before delving into the evidence and links to other pages that focus on one specific component. We also know from our research into Search Engine Optimization that it is much better to cover a lot of material in your home page and provide links to every important page on your website. That way, when Google and the other search engines come to visit, and they are doing so frequently now on this new domain, each page gets copied into the search database, and the content is recorded.
So, somehow, we managed to create links to every page, every informative video, and every piece of important evidence.
As we have previously noted, on December 27, 2023, an anonymous agent claiming to represent the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station sent to our producer an unsigned “Notice” professing "Libel and Defamation". Not only was this notice unsigned, but the writer also sent it through the generic email address info@themortgagestation.ca that is not assigned to any of the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station.
Now, due to their own inaction and cowardice, the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station are trapped in a box of their own creation, and they apparently see no true path to escape.
As noted in our ‘Latest News’ section, dated December 28, 2023, the day prior our producer received via email a PDF file entitled “Libel and Slander Notice Ironside”. The document was written by somebody with little if any knowledge of the law, it was not signed, there was no name associated with the authorship, and the email address was generic.
The question we have to ask is who exactly is this ‘brave’ and ‘bold’ issuer of ridiculous rants who hides in the shadows and is too scared to affix their name to their own threats?
Through our research regarding Search Engine Optimization, we learned that maintaining and frequently updating a subject-relevant blog is one of the best ways to attract the ‘robots’ and ‘spiders’ of the search engines, which improves your website’s footprint on the Internet.
So, we thought we would kill two birds with one stone.
Our new Daily Updates page includes short stories and pertinent facts that are better suited to short posts rather than full reports or articles. It will be updated more frequently than adding new pages and will be organized with the most recent updates at the top.
A few of our regular followers immediately noticed that last night we made some minor changes to the operational side of our website, most obviously in the form of a date-optimized drop-down menu. We did this to gain room for more articles and videos, as clearly, the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station are intent on continuing to hide from their own criminal and ethical abuses, and it now seems inevitable that this story will go the long way around to get to the full truth. That is 100% their choice, and clearly, they don’t care if their mortgage funding companies get hurt in the process, as has occured to HomeEquity Bank.
These lenders and the shareholders who finance them also have a right to know the truth about those with whom they do business.
Regardless of this wall of denial, we are moving forward, and on Friday, December 8, 2022, we exercised our right as journalists to contact the various lenders who provide mortgage funding to the clients of Verico the Mortgage Station. We would have preferred to leave them out of this, as they are not direct parties to the crimes, but then we realized we have an obligation past that of just the potentially vulnerable seniors who buy CHIP Reverse Mortgage from the see-no-evil HomeEquity Bank.
These lenders and the shareholders who finance them also have a right to know the truth about those with whom they do business.
Most people know that con artists and cowards walk hand-in-hand. Look no further than George Santos, who quite rapidly went from being a shining new star of the freshly minted GOP majority to that of an expelled formerly “honourable” member of the United States Congress.
If either of these stories sounds familiar, it is likely because you read something similar here in our ongoing reports about how the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station committed the indictable offence of usury, also known as loansharking, against a senior and veteran. Then, they lied, hid, violated “regulatory requirements” and even ‘motivated’ local police to omit evidence in a plot to escape accountability for their crimes, which under the Criminal Code of Canada carry a punishment of up to five years in prison.
Every day, lawyers are retained by individuals and corporations to sue others for defamation, which is defined as: “the act of communicating false statements about a person that injure the reputation of that person.” Few solicitors decline to accept a retainer for these civil claims, as they are usually easily proven.
Based solely on the very public allegations made by our team, in our own names, most lawyers would assume a claim by either the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station or the Board of Directors of HomeEquity Bank would be a slam dunk. After all, what kind of financial service, which works on trust, would not defend against allegations of loan sharking, lying at a pathological level, and evasion of the very government regulatory requirements that are intended to protect the public from what we are reporting were undertaken by the brokers Verico the Mortgage Station and ignored by the board of directors of the HomeEquity Bank?
In this segment, entitled “Anonymous Promoter Now Helping Us To Warn Vulnerable Seniors About The Loan Sharks Of Lefroy”, we discuss how an unidentified expert in Search Engine Optimization is covertly helping us to improve the reach of our various videos and articles by using a state-of-the-art technique known as "long-tail keywords". The results, so far, have been nothing short of remarkable, as now our facts and evidence about Verico the Mortgage Station and their profit motivated allies at HomeEquity Bank are coming up aces on page one of Google and other search engines. This will enable us to warn more potentially vulnerable seniors about the risks posed to their financial security by the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station and their 'turn a blind eye' allies at HomeEquity Bank, the providers of the CHIP Reverse Mortgages
In this segment, entitled “Lies, Manipulation, and Loansharking”, we show how after committing the indictable offence of usury, or loan sharking, the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station were called upon to prove the validity of their actions to their governing body, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA). However, instead of substantiating their illegal actions, they simply walked away, ignoring what they admitted were “regulatory requirements” that are intended to ensure they are honest enough to maintain their license.
Many in Simcoe County now know our story about how detectives of the South Simcoe Police Service omitted evidence and figures through deliberately inaccurate calculations to ensure that the wealthy and well-connected brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station were not charged with committing the criminal act of usury, or loan sharking, against potentially vulnerable seniors. Details can be found at https://www.fivepointsmedia.ca/south-simcoe-police-service-now-omitting-and-falsifying-evidence-to-protect-loan-sharks.html
Earlier this month, our producer, a former international journalist and technical support specialist for private investigations, replied directly to the detective’s deception, and when doing so he copied every member of Simcoe County Council to the email.
Christmas is coming, and in today’s economy, who can’t use an extra hundred dollars? Even better, you would be winning that money by helping protect vulnerable seniors from the threat of financial fraud. We need your help to spread the word about our efforts to shut down loan sharks who prey on seniors in Simcoe County. That could be your parents or grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends, or just seniors you know. So, each month, during the time we are working on this project, we will give away one gift card valued at $100.00 to the top provider of likes, shares, and group posts that promote our journalistic exposé. The stories to be promoted can be found at www.fivepointsmedia.ca/loansharks. If you know your way around social media, you could share our stories in a hundred places in an hour.
Our team at Five Points Media is producing an exposé documentary about fraud through usury, or loan sharking, that is being used against seniors and veterans in Simcoe County. For the back story watch https://www.fivepointsmedia.ca/south-simcoe-police-service-now-omitting-and-falsifying-evidence-to-protect-loan-sharks.html
This indictable offence, which is punishable by a prison sentence of up to five years, was committed against a senior and veteran by the mortgage brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station. We are also exposing why the detectives and top brass at the South Simcoe Police Service are transparently protecting these wealthy and influential brokers who claim sales of five to six million dollars a year. Details can be found at https://www.fivepointsmedia.ca/south-simcoe-police-service-cook-the-books-to-help-rich-crooks.html
We know this is a weird thing to say, but today our Producer had a Zoom meeting with a Producer and financier of social documentaries, and if our lawyer says it is good, then we have more than enough money available to produce our ongoing documentary about loan sharking at Verico the Mortgage Station. We will also be addressing how Verico Financial Group turned a blind eye, how HomeEquity Bank showed no concern for the financial security of their often vulnerable senior clients, and how the South Simcoe Police Service have been going out of their way to just ignore the facts and evidence in this case while becoming increasingly creative in how to justify the obvious crimes committed. Our new best friend was impressed with how fast the story has developed, and what we have kept back for now about a few things local residents and the population at large should find very interesting.
Reaction to our most recent video, found at “South Simcoe Police Service Now Omitting and Falsifying Evidence to Protect Loan Sharks”, has quite clearly caught the attention of tens of thousands of Simcoe County taxpayers, and with good reason.
We have shown through the presentation of evidence that detectives and top brass at the South Simcoe Police Service seem very eager to protect the loan sharks at Verico the Mortgage Station, as they have so far tried to ignore the claims of criminal activity, and then dismiss the fully supported allegations, and most recently omit the facts and alter calculations in favour of the accused.
At what point do the one-sided and blatantly biased actions of a police department become an act of obstruction of justice, and when does a detective become so motivated to help the criminals that he becomes an accomplice after the fact?
These are the questions we are now researching and bringing to light after a special fraud detective assigned by the South Simcoe Police Service to review the case of usuary committed by the wealthy brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station told our producer that he is omitting key evidence based on nothing but his personal desires while also knowingly using the wrong mathematical formula that will alter the rate of interest charged so that it does not appear to be usury or loan sharking. The first action is unethical, while the second is a crime.
Under Canadian criminal law, individuals who facilitate or assist in the execution of a crime are treated as culpable as the person who physically carries out the act. This principle is commonly known as “aiding and abetting”. Individually, they are defined as: “Aiding is assisting, supporting, or helping another to commit a crime. Abetting is encouraging, inciting, or inducing another to commit a crime. Aiding and abetting is a term often used to describe a single act.” So, you ask, how does this relate to this story?
Well, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
HomeEquity Bank Turns To Censorship - Far Too Little, and Much Too Late
A Pathetic and Futile Attempt to Silence the Truth
Last night, July 22, 2022, we were advised by Facebook that the HomeEquity Bank had filed a copyright complaint against several of our posts, with the goal being to hide them from the public and their existing and potential clients. This must be the weakest and most pathetic action ever taken by a bank to silence the truth and stop public questions about their ethics and trustworthiness.
The strong stand tall in the light of day while the weak and guilty lurk in the shadows.
So, to be clear, for about a month we have been publicly questioning the ethics of the HomeEquity Bank, which is owned by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, and which boasts assets exceeding $5.7 billion.
Five Points Media - Who We Are
Why we are exposing the crimes committed by brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station
We have noticed a trend amongst the many visitors who are now coming to our website repeatedly, sometimes several times on the same day. They often review an article, linking to it from social media, a search engine, or an email or other link, and then they go to our “Testimonials” or the “Our Team” page. Sometimes they go to our commercial services website and review the counterpart pages there. This is natural as people want to know who is making the allegations.
However, when we see the same visitor go to those same pages eight, nine, ten, or more times, it becomes clear that they are trying to figure out for themselves who we are and if we are telling the truth.
The stain of corruption is spreading rapidly to both Verico Financial Group and HomeEquity Bank, which created the CHIP Reverse Mortgages that is targeted at seniors who own their own homes. Both are coming in hot with Google and other search engine results, mostly due to the traffic being drawn in by concerned seniors and groups, with a little help from our new SEO tools that are working very well.
Good companies that continue to associate with criminals will be painted as accessories or aiders and abettors.
The game of living on the lam continues as those who fail to represent Verico the Mortgage Station, Verico Financial Group, and the HomeEquity Bank refuse to stand up and support or explain in any way how it is acceptable to them for provincially licensed mortgage brokers to defraud clients through loansharking and skimming from mortgages. So far, only a single Director at HomeEquity Bank has thought to give our producer a call and discuss the matter. However, even when his questions were answered, and he was told the details, the Director again refused to agree to an interview that we sought with the President and CEO Steven Ranson.
They all know we are telling the truth or one of these multi-million and billion-dollar corporations would have filed an action in the Superior Court seeking a cease and desist or other injunctive relief.
On June 11 and 12, we sent the email included below to a list of brokers and brokerages that operate under the Verico flag in Ontario. Clearly, from our visitor logs, many of them shared the details of our pending documentary with associated brokers in other cities and provinces, as we had hits come in from all sides, east to west.
We are now compiling the list of all Verico brokers to whom we will be sending our introduction, as well as to others who are not associated and who are their competitors.
We are sure that it will come as a surprise to absolutely nobody that the HomeEquity Bank declined our request for an interview with Steven Ranson, President and CEO, regarding the tactics of profiteering through loansharking and fraud that have been exposed and substantiated as being committed by brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station while selling the “CHIP Reverse Mortgage” to potentially vulnerable seniors.
How many people would idly do nothing as hundreds of dollars were stolen from their bank account?
Five Points Media was created in 2014, nine years ago, and some of our videos have drawn more than 50,000 views. However, despite the longevity and popularity of those productions, after just two weeks our page entitled “The South Simcoe Police Service is Protecting a Loanshark” has leaped ahead to become the most popular page on our website other than the home page. Of our top ten pages, the index page of this story about Verico the Mortgage Station, found here, comes in at number six of more than 300 pages.
We have recently learned that a prominent group that is focused on the issues of seniors is sharing our articles via email, apparently to a lot of people who are concerned about elder fraud.
The Back Story of Our Investigative Journalism
Why we are protecting seniors from the loan sharks at Verico the Mortgage Station
On Thursday, June 29, we released through Facebook the video entitled “Fraud Warning For Seniors In Simcoe County!” and then we posted it on our website. The result was much better than we had expected for the beginning of a long weekend. This was the fourth story and video we have published about Verico the Mortgage Station this year, plus the three we shared a year ago. So far, none of the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station have taken any action to prevent us from publishing these factual reports, and none has shown the courage to step up and tell us their side of the story on camera.
We were also asked by a reader who claims to work in the mortgage industry
'why is no other local media outlet covering this story,
and why are the brokers so clearly hiding?'
A special investigative detective, trained in financial crime and fraud, has been assigned by the South Simcoe Police Service to review fully supported allegations of usury, or loansharking, that were committed in Innisfil.
When advising us of his decision "I have undertaken to have this thoroughly reviewed by our fraud investigator", Inspector Fernandes of the South Simcoe Police Service described the specialist detective as ". . . has extensive training and experience involving high level, high monetary value, and complex fraud investigations . . ."
It was on June 22, 2023, less than a week ago, that Inspector Julio Fernandes of the South Simcoe Police Service sent a haughty and indignant email that finalized with the words: “Your claim of a criminal interest rate is unfounded, and it has been determined that you are not the victim of a crime (criminal offence).” Yesterday, after we had released our irrefutable evidence to the public and to all of Innisfil Town Council, he wrote to me again, but this time in a very apologetic manner full of promises and requests for “patience” as he notified me: “With the additional information and attachments that you have provided in your last email, I have undertaken to have this thoroughly reviewed by our fraud investigator . . .”
What a difference a week can make when the public is informed, and the secrets are exposed.
Are the loansharks at "Verico the Mortgage Station" a financial risk to seniors?
We asked Steven Ranson, Pres./CEO, of HomeEquity Bank CHIP Reverse Mortgage
The brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station trade heavily in the setup of CHIP Reverse Mortgages offered by the HomeEquity Bank. This means they attract seniors who want to stay in their own homes throughout at least most of their retirement. So, you would think that the Detective, Inspector, and Chief of the South Simcoe Police Service who are choosing to ignore the evidence of loansharking, as committed by Renee Dadswell, a broker at Verico the Mortgage Station, would be a bit more concerned about ensuring that seniors are not defrauded of their life savings.
Today, we emailed Mayor Dollin and carbon copied every member of Innisfil City Council advising them of our documentary and providing some details of the multi-level cover-up that seems to be happening at the South Simcoe Police Service. Obviously, our goal is to ensure that this story, which focuses on affluent and influential members of Innisfil’s business community, is not just brushed under the rug as seems to be the intent.
The law applies to everybody, and no amount of shuffling, ignoring, or denial is going to make this story or us go away.
A little more than a year ago, we posted a story called “Loansharking in Lefroy?” It can be found at HTTPS://www.fivepointsmedia.ca/verico-the-mortgage-station-loansharking-in-lefroy.html. To this date, 370 days later, no representative of Verico the Mortgage Station, the company at the center of allegations of usury, has taken action to remove our allegations. If we were lying or inaccurate in our claims, lawyers for this provincially regulated financial company could have silenced us through a cease-and-desist order through legal action in the Superior Court. They could have also attained an order of costs against us and demanded that we post a retraction and an apology.
Don’t you want to know why this business that works on trust regarding your finances did nothing to protect its “good” name?
For most individuals and families, the decision to buy a house is the biggest investment of our lives. So much can go wrong, so when it comes time to take the plunge, we need to know we can trust the broker who will arrange our mortgage, and that they will always have our best interests at heart.
What we do not expect is that the broker will take three times as long as they promised to close the mortgage, that they would disregard multiple dates by which they promised to have everything done, or that they will be cavalier about how their very evident negligence or incompetence is costing their client, a benevolent not-for-profit, thousands of dollars every week that they stall the process.
Worst yet, you do not expect to discovering that the broker you thought you could trust was charging you usury levels of interest on a loan that is the textbook definition of loansharking.
