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Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
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John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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Perhaps you’ve heard the ads on radio – the ones featuring Hayden D. “Hayes” Barnard. Need a mortgage? Just call Paramount Equity Mortgage.
And if you did, then you might be in for some restitution.
The State Department of Financial Institutions late yesterday announced the agency intends to revoke Paramount’s license to do business in Washington, and fine Paramount $500,000, and require that the company pay investigation and examination costs, plus require that restitution be paid “to any applicant or borrower harmed by (Paramount’s) violations of the Mortgage Broker Practices Act.”
The company made more than 1,700 mortgage loans to Washington borrowers in 2007, collecting more than $8.7 million in fees, said a DFI release.
The agency accuses California-based Paramount “of charging and collecting unearned fees, charging consumers to buy down interest rates without actually reducing the rate, failing to make required disclosures and making state and federally required disclosures in a deceptive manner.”
Deb Bortner, director of DFI’s Division of Consumer Services, said Tuesday, “Paramount failed to make proper disclosures in almost every loan we reviewed. In today’s market, we simply do not need a mortgage broker engaged in deceptive conduct doing business in this state.”
Calls to Paramount’s offices in King County and Spokane were not returned late Tuesday, nor was a call to Hayes himself. Three people who answered, however, promised that someone would get back to me.
I’ll start the clock.
If you feel that you’re due some money out of this, click here for a link, or visit www.dfi.wa.gov for more information.
UPDATE: Wednesday afternoon I spoke with Jason Bloom, chairman of Elliott Bay Mortgage in Seattle and incoming president of the Washington Association of Mortgage Brokers. He later issued a statement:
"WAMB supports all regulatory oversight that ensures consumers are protected by mortgage brokers and lenders who hold themselves out to the highest levels of professional service. We secured passage of loan originator licensing in our state and if any individual or company is found guilty of wrong-doing, WAMB supports their removal from the industry."
