Below is the link to the AG's website and a 59 page PDF of the full complaint against H&R Block

http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=cagopressrelease&L=...

Yes, there were definately people who could have qualified for more favorable terms that ended up in a sub prime loan, but who's responsibility is that? At Option One we had only sub prime loans (except for a brief foray into ALT-A which was a joke). If a borrower was submitted to us and qualified based on our guidelines should they have been denied because maybe they would have qualified for a MyCommunity or FHA loan? How would we have known since we didn't run DU or LP? How would it have been viewed if we denied certain ethnic borrowers because we didn't think we were giving them the best deal. Nobody wants to hear their company's name mentioned by Jesse or Al.

I'm now a rep for a conventional / FHA lender so I know this is not a “sub prime” or Option One problem. Even good credit borrowers are put into loans with rates that are higher than they might actually be able to get. It might only be an 1/8th or 1/4 but it's still higher. Especially with regards to FHA loans. I've lost a number of loans because my company caps YSP at 3 and some of my competitors allow up to 4 and don't count UFMIP in the 4.99 calculation.

Option One was a very good company and operated with very high ethical standards. It's too bad everything is being blamed on “sub prime”. If it was only a sub prime problem why are all of the MI companies running into problems? It's a mortgage problem, a housing bubble problem, a change in consumer behavior problem, etc. It just showed up first with sub prime loans.

Just my 2 cents.

Again, I think you post nails it…I would like to say this, and it may sound a bit “off color” but I would be willing to bet that if you investigated the loans that are crying foul in this case, you will find that more than a 50% were written by an ethnicity other then white. Point being, theose who are claiming discrimination were screwed by those they trusted more on ethnic similarities and not those who were infact offering good deals.
To some degree, people get what they deserve.

Greg…I would ask you to explain further. You seem convinced that Option One put a gun to every borrowers head and forced them to take the loan that they were offered. Please (if you have a moment) give me a few examples of the good all-in screwing.

Loan officers are the ones who decided what upfront fees they were going to charge and what rate / yield spread they would submit the deal at.

At what point are borrowers going to be held responsible for their actions. They are the ones who signed the 1003s. They are the ones who wanted to cash-out the equity in their home to buy new a car, go on vacations, you name it. They are the ones who allowed someone to talk them into buying an “owner occupied” home that they never planned on living in.

While there were deals that should not have been done, this is a company that was around for more than 10 years and the loans performed well until the very end.