Shaking Down Seniors in Innisfil, Verico the Mortgage Station and the HomeEquity Bank
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.
We thank the silver warriors who are concerned about the ethics of the HomeEquity Bank which still seems quite comfortable selling their CHIP Reverse Mortgages through the services of obvious loan sharks who charged 120% interest on a loan and who skimmed hundreds of dollars from a mortgage brokered through the HomeEquity Bank. Our new friends have a lot of spare time, and often a vested interest in this story, and they like to keep busy and feel they are helping others and to cause change. In this case, they are accomplishing both. The evidence we have presented here, and the fact that none of the parties have taken any action to stop us, legally or otherwise, speaks volumes to those who know only the guilty hide.
We had some questions that we kept having to answer, so rather than copy and paste responses, we conceptualized the story into this video so everybody can understand.
Seniors across Canada are now questioning the ethics of the HomeEquity Bank
Seniors across Canada are now questioning the ethics of the HomeEquity Bank, which offers the CHIP Reverse Mortgage to people who own a house and who are over fifty-five years of age.
From what we are hearing, they are not happy about what they are learning. Are they justified? We let you decide based on the evidence and our findings, which have never been challenged legally or otherwise by the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station, the management team at VERICO Financial Group, or the board of directors at HomeEquity Bank.
About a year ago, in May of 2022, our producer, a Barrie area philanthropist, was defrauded by brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station while he was signing up for a CHIP Reverse Mortgage being provided by the HomeEquity Bank. The brokers breached the public trust by skimming money out of the payment of the mortgage and also by charging the illegal interest rate of one hundred and twenty per cent on a private loan. That is known as usury or loan sharking, and it is an indictable offence under section 347 of the Criminal Code of Canada that is punishable by a prison term of up to five years.
In June of 2023, the South Simcoe Police Service assigned a detective to investigate fully supported claims of fraud and usury, also known as loan sharking. However, that supposedly unbiased investigator was somehow motivated by the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station, who report earnings of five to six million dollars a year, to such a point that he listened only to them and completely ignored the victim of their crimes. A follow-up review of the evidence compelled the Chief and the Head of Criminal Investigations to apologize for the blatantly biased investigation and to immediately assign the case to a specially trained financial fraud detective. The evidence provided was simply that compelling and the crimes were just that obvious.
That exact same evidence has now been sent to the Director of the Contact Centre and Client Relations of HomeEquity Bank. The team at HomeEquity Bank are not detectives, but they are experts in mortgages and financial services. So, unless they don’t want to acknowledge it, there is no reason they cannot connect the dots and see for themselves that the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station committed the crimes of fraud by skimming an unauthorized “administrative fee” off the top of the mortgage payout and loan sharking while they were selling a CHIP Reverse Mortgage provided by HomeEquity Bank.
As is now the case regarding the South Simcoe Police Service and the Innisfil Mayor and Council, the owners and board of directors of HomeEquity Bank cannot fall back on plausible deniability. They have the evidence and they have acknowledged receiving it. Now, if they are any kind of ethical business, the owners and board of directors of the HomeEquity Bank have no choice but to face the fact that these crimes were committed as a result of the professional relationship through which brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station acted as arms-length agents for HomeEquity Bank. In doing so, Renee Dadswell, David Flude, and Lisa Purchase acted in bad faith as much to the HomeEquity Bank as they did to the target of their grift.
This is a test of the corporate culture of the HomeEquity Bank, which advertises frequently how much they care about the financial safety and security of their clients. No reputable bank would ever take the chance of being seen to be working with brokers who defraud their own clients through tactics like skimming from a mortgage and loan sharking. The optics alone are potentially devastating in a world where entire brands are cancelled by a single bad decision.
The CHIP Reverse Mortgage is also sold through hundreds of brokerages across Canada, so it is not in their best interests to ignore the risks to their brand in favour of whatever profit they make from this one small brokerage in Lafroy, Ontario. They should also be asking why the provincially regulated mortgage experts at Verico Financial Group Inc. did nothing throughout the past year after the allegations were first brought to their attention.
The financial experts at HomeEquity Bank have an obligation to their thousands of clients to review the evidence that is so compelling it caused a sharp turnaround in interest by the most experienced members of the South Simcoe Police Service. As plausible deniability is no longer on the table, if a client of the HomeEquity Bank is defrauded by the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station, they are accountable as they know the truth, or at least have enough evidence in their hands to suspect the allegations have substance. Now we will all see if the HomeEquity Bank has ethics, and if they care in the slightest about the financial security of their clients.
The evidence is irrefutable as the sources are a bank statement and the trust ledger and commitment form that was produced by brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station which shows the disbursement of funds. One shows a loan of two thousand dollars while the other shows a payment to Renee Dadswell totalling two thousand, four hundred, and ninety-nine dollars and seventy-five cents, which was paid to her just forty-six days later. That calculates to an interest rate of one hundred and twenty per cent and an “administration fee” of two hundred dollars, both of which are illegal.
The HomeEquity Bank needs to consider that if the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station will sink so low as to grift their clients by fraud and loan sharking, what else will they do to cheat unsuspecting and often vulnerable seniors who go to them because they sell CHIP Reverse Mortgage? These brokers are entrusted with the homes and life savings of often vulnerable seniors because they are supposed to be safe to trust. They are also supposedly governed by provincial regulations but have shown that they ignore those rules whenever they wish with impunity despite acknowledging that they are “regulatorily required” to investigate and report all complaints to the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario.
What are the ethics of HomeEquity Bank, and do they truly care about their senior citizen clients like they claim to in their advertising?
Below is the content of the email our producer sent on Friday, July 14, 2023 to the
Director of Contact Centre & Client Relations at the HomeEquity Bank
Good Afternoon.
Further to our telephone discussion on Friday, July 7, 2023, please find attached the following:
1. A true copy of my bank statement from March 2022
2. The Funds Disbursement Record from the Trust Ledger and Commitment provided to me by Lisa Purchase, a broker at Verico the Mortgage Station
3. An e-transfer deposit error notice from my bank
4. Two photographs of your advertising at Verico the Mortgage Station
5. An email back and forth between Renee Dadswell and myself dated June 16, 2022
I am currently compiling a full package of evidence for Detective Constable Muto, the specialist Fraud Investigator from the South Simcoe Police Service who is investigating this matter, but my efforts were slowed this week due to illness. For that reason, I have had to reschedule to meet with him on July 28, 2023. I will forward to you a copy of that complete package when it is finalized.
Please note, the evidence I am providing to you today, in the form of the first two listed documents, is all it took to convince Chief John Van Dyke and Inspector Julio Fernandes of the South Simcoe Police Service to set aside the investigation conducted by the first detective, who was somehow motivated to side completely with the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station to such a point that he did not even speak with me or seek any further evidence. During his exchange with the brokers at the office of Verico the Mortgage Station, something caused that detective to become best friends with the accused and to ignore the evidence. I will leave it to our viewers and followers to decide for themselves the most likely motivation.
This evidence alone was also sufficient to bring into question the authenticity of a document that Inspector Fernandes advised me in an email had been produced by the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station to convince the initial detective that I had been charged only 1% interest per month or 12% per year. Despite multiple requests on my part, the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station have adamantly refused to provide me with a copy of that document which they claim bears my signature.
If these provincially licensed mortgage brokers did in fact manufactured falsified evidence, as the Inspector suggests in his initial email dismissing my claims, I will be seeking charges of obstruction of justice. If they falsified my signature on this document that has now been used as part of a police investigation to avoid criminal liability, I will also be suing them for malfeasance and forgery.
Please note in the document named “01 - 22-03 - John Ironside bank statement”, in the third line, dated March 31, 2022, a deposit was made by e-transfer to my account in the amount of $2000.00. This is the loan provided by Renee Dadswell, as was brokered by Lisa Purchase with an acknowledgment from David Flude. This loan is not contested by either side. Further, there was a minor issue with the transfer which generated a deposit error notification that you can review in the file “02 - FW_ INTERAC e-Transfer_ A money transfer from RENEE DADSWELL cannot be automatically deposited”. You will note the date is March 30, 2022, and that Renee Dadswell is clearly noted as being the source of the e-transfer deposit.
Now please review the file named “03 - 22-05-16 - John Ironside trust ledger and commitment page 2”. Within, you will see that on May 16, 2022, just 46 days after the loan was deposited, the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station paid from my mortgage to Renee Dadswell the sum of $2,499.75. As I have previously pointed out to Chief Van Dyke and Inspector Fernandes, if the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station were, in fact, charging me 1% per month, as they claim, the interest on $2,000.00 for 46 days would be approximately $30.00. However, I was charged $499.75. When calculated at the true interest rate of 10% per month or 120% per year, the amount charged would total around $300.00, or apparently $299.75.
The remaining $200.00 is the “administrative fee” charged by Renee Dadswell through the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station which has been identified by Inspector Fernandes in an email as being in violation of lending laws. Attached is a document entitled “22-06-14 - Email Renee Dadswell”. It is an email exchange between Renee Dadswell and me that occurred about a year ago at a time when I did not know her role at Verico the Mortgage Station.
Although Renee Dadswell eventually returned this “administrative fee”, a month after the mortgage closed, it was most definitely not a voluntary refund. I had written multiple times to Lisa Purchase about the missing money during the weeks after the mortgage closed, and I went so far as to advise her of my intent to file a civil action, to file criminal allegations with the South Simcoe Police Service, and to file a complaint with the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA). I can produce those emails if you require them as they are part of a package of evidence that I provided last year to the South Simcoe Police Service.
The “administrative fee” was also never discussed nor authorized by me. The brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station simply skimmed it off the mortgage when it closed. There is no document bearing my signature that authorized that deduction from my mortgage. This shared decision to skim money from my mortgage is an act of criminal fraud, which is why Renee Dadswell eventually returned what she had stolen so she could hopefully avoid criminal prosecution. As I noted in the email exchange with Renee Dadswell: “It does not matter that you paid back the interest. The offence still occurred. Your action now is essentially an admission of guilt and is no different than a burglar offering to return what they stole in exchange for not being charged with a criminal offence.” At that time I thought the full $499.75 was exclusively from interest charged, and I later became aware that the sum was a split between interest charged at a rate of 10% per month or 120% per year and the “administrative fee” of $200.00.
The mortgage was payable to me, yet the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station skimmed a never discussed “administrative fee” and the illegal interest fees from what your bank sent before I received it. I was not afforded any option about paying what the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station demanded, and my complaints to them were ignored. David Flude, the Lead Broker, told me that he was obligated to review my concerns and evidence and file a report with the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA). However, despite advising me in writing that it was a “regulatory requirement” that could not be disregarded, he never contacted me to discuss the issue. He simply closed all avenues of communication and did nothing for a full year.
This group pattern of defrauding clients and then evading responsibility for their actions suggests that the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station are operating as a team and are organized as a criminal enterprise. I do not mean “organized crime” as in the mafia, but that they are a collective that covers for each other, and which are deliberate in their criminal intent and actions. None of this was accidental and it is not a matter of mistakes in judgement. Lisa Purchase, Renee Dadswell, and David Flude, as licensed brokers, working as arms-length agents of the HomeEquity Bank, stole money from the mortgage that your regulated institution sent intended for me via their entrusted services. As such, your bank has an obligation to review the evidence and take appropriate action.
As I discussed with you during our phone conversation on Friday, July 7, 2023, Verico the Mortgage Station promotes itself heavily as a provider of your CHIP Reverse Mortgage. That means they market themselves specifically to potentially vulnerable seniors. In fact, as you will see from the attached photos, “04 - Chip Mortgage Sign” and “04 - Chip Mortgage Sign - full building” their office features one piece of promotional advertising, that being your poster blown up big enough to cover an entire window.
You now have the evidence that substantiates my claims, or at least enough to make you justifiably suspicious that my claims are accurate. You could make the excuse that the documents are faked, but it is the same evidence I have posted online and presented to the South Simcoe Police Service, so let’s please be reasonable. I am also a highly experienced journalist and former private investigator, as you know from your company’s various visits to my websites. Also, I am the one posting publicly my evidence and details of the story that could get me sued if I was not accurate in my presentation.
Meanwhile, it is the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station who refuse to provide me with a document they claimed I signed. They are also the ones hiding and not seeking injunctive relief, which would be an easy matter if it wasn’t for the fact that my claims are true, and my evidence is authentic. It is also the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station whom Inspector Fernandes noted in his email had presented as real at least one document that simply cannot be authentic as the claims made in it are completely debunked by the amount I have shown here with official documents that I was charged in interest and as an illegal “administrative fee”.
Denial is not the path that will ensure public confidence in the CHIP Reverse Mortgage offered by the HomeEquity Bank. It is clear from the reaction to our public posts that the people see who is telling the truth, and they are spreading the story to others. Yesterday, in the post found at “ HTTPS://www.fivepointsmedia.ca/verico-the-mortgage-station-loansharks-on-the-lam.html “ I noted: “We also know where these people come from, and they are currently about 95% local from cities, towns, and villages located between Toronto and Barrie.” Today, due to a massive influx of readers from other provinces both east and west, I had to update that number to being now only 89% local.
If ethics are part of the corporate culture of the HomeEquity Bank you will think first of your clients, the often vulnerable seniors who sign up for your CHIP Reverse Mortgage, and you will stop doing business with the loan sharks and fraudulent fee-charging brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station. It would be both safe and ethical for the HomeEquity Bank to limit its potential liability even if only to allow the fraud investigation to make a decision after sifting through hundreds of pages of emails and other evidence.
The HomeEquity Bank needs to get in front of this story now, especially as it was purchased by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board. This story is only going to get bigger, especially because of the lack of response from any of the involved parties, and as you will see in our post at “ HTTPS://www.fivepointsmedia.ca/the-back-story-of-our-investigative-journalism.html “ we do not give up until justice is applied via the interest of the court of public opinion.
I reserve the right to reproduce this correspondence in full or part as a component of our documentary or as part of an article in support of our investigative journalism.
Regards,
John IronsideProducer / Director
Five Points Media
A division of the Ontario Community Awareness Network
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Throughout 2014-2023, our crew at 3B Solutions and Five Points Media has been identified as the “Best Videography in Barrie” by Three Best Rated; an independent consumer advocacy group that bases their ratings on testimonials and referrals from local businesses.
