Mortgage company's doors slammed shut

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - A local mortgage company is shut down, its owner's license revoked, and it all started with a customer complaint to the Target 12 Investigators.

For weeks, police have been investigating whether an employee of Greenwich Mortgage stole from customers. Now, two people are charged.

A Warwick man tells Target 12 an employee at the mortgage company took his deposit, and then took off. The Target 12 Investigators began an immediate investigation, and we uncovered more customers who say the same employee took their money too!

Greenwich Mortgage on Hope Street in Providence is closed up tight. The Department of Business Regulation shut them down, accusing them of "failure to comply with several RI general laws."

That includes hiring a non-licensed loan originator, failure of the owner to inform the department that his license was revoked in Connecticut, and not responding to three customer complaints about possible fraudulent activity by an employee.

Walter Williams said, "The person I contacted wanted some figures so he could check to see if we could refinance."

Williams is one of those customers. He tells Target 12 he contacted Robert Amaral, an employee of Greenwich Mortgage to do a loan modification.

"He said for the services he would charge a fee," said Williams.

Williams says at Amaral's request he wrote a $1,300 check made payable to Greenwich Mortgage. But that was the last Williams saw of his deposit or of Amaral.

According to police reports obtained b y Target 12, two other customers claim they also wrote checks made out to Greenwich Mortgage at Amaral's request and no work was ever done on the loan modification.

Police believe Amaral used his position at Greenwich Mortgage to perpetrate a fraudulent scheme. The investigation shows he took the checks to a Citizens Bank in Warwick, and conspired with his brother-in-law to open up a business account... then days later, they started withdrawing on the account.

The Department of Business Regulation says Amaral is not a licensed loan originator in Rhode Island. A long list of felony and misdemeanor convictions may have something to do with it.

The Target 12 Investigators reached out to the owner of Greenwich Mortgage, Neil Saunders. He refused to go on camera, but he did tell us he simply hired Amaral to be a telemarketer and he did not need to be licensed for that. But a police report and the D.B.R. tell us a different story.

Mike Marques, Director of the Department of Business Regulation said, "When you start taking information and processing going into the process of taking an application you are now a loan originator you're not a telemarketer anymore."

Saunders admitted to Target 12 the company didn't ask Amaral for any identification when he applied for the job. State banking officials say that is inexcusable.

"So in addition to providing us with inaccurate information, he also failed as a manager and owner of that company to manage his employees. There is no excuse for that in my opinion," said Marques.

The owner of Greenwich Mortgage is not facing any criminal charges and said he'll appeal his license revocation. As for Amaral, police arrested him Tuesday working at another mortgage company. His brother in law is also charged.

 

  Citizens Bank issued the following statement regarding the case:

 "Citizens Bank does not comment on specific customer account information. Our employees follow standard industry practices when opening accounts."