Colorado Mortgage Advertisements Lead to Subpoena From State A.G.

The Colorado Attorney General’s office has subpoenaed the Denver Newspaper Agency for information about mortgage companies who previously had advertised in the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News.

In 2005, Attorney General John Suthers said that as part of his crackdown on mortgage fraud, he would investigate companies that advertised super-low mortgage interest rates, saying the ads could represent bait-and-switch ploys.

In the subpoena issued on Friday to the agency, which handles advertising for both papers, the state’s top law enforcement officer asked for all the information the agency has on Leo Shifrin, Mark Shifrin and Jerry Johnson and companies with which they are affiliated. There’s no doubt that he is making the fight against mortgage fraud a priority.

The mortgage companies are Mortgage Planning and Lending Specialist Ltd., Jupiter Lending, Mile High Mortgage, CBA Inc., Consumer Mortgage Group Inc., Mortgage Processing Group Inc., Shifrin Inc., Wholesale Mortgage Lending LLC, Vision Title Agency of Colorado Inc. and VTA of Mile High.

“We probably have 15 open investigations, including this one involving all of their associated companies,” Jan Zavislan, deputy attorney general for consumer protection, said on Monday.

Because it is an ongoing investigation, he said he could not give many details. But he said that under state law his office can only issue a subpoena if it believes it has evidence of violating the Colorado Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits deceptive trade practices.

Newspaper agency spokesman Jim Nolan had no comment on the subpoena.

“We don’t know what the attorney general’s office is after,” Nolan said.

Both Johnson and Leo Shifrin say they have done nothing wrong and already have supplied the attorney general’s office with all documents related to the Colorado mortgage companies in question. Zavislan said it’s “unclear” whether they have fully complied in turning over documents.

Johnson and Shifrin said they have been told that the attorney general’s office is seeking information on every mortgage lender who advertised in the papers.

“We quit advertising with The Denver Post quite some time ago,” Johnson said.

Johnson said that because Colorado is only one of two states that doesn’t license mortgage brokers, the attorney general’s office has said “they are not going to put up with any shenanigans,” like deceptive ads from lenders.

He and Shifrin said they support licensing mortgage brokers. Next year, for the first time, mortgage brokers will be regulated but will not be licensed.

“I think it is the attorney general’s job and obligation to protect the public, and that is what they are doing. We don’t even feel like they are investigating us, because they are asking for this information from all mortgage companies that advertised in the papers,” Shifrin said.

Johnson said they have a number of complaints against their companies with the Better Business Bureau but argued that’s to be expected, given their size. He said they have resolved all their disputes except one with a woman in Louisville, who Johnson said has complained anonymously against them on ripoffreport.com.

“If you make 10 home loans and you have five complaints, that’s terrible,” Johnson said. “But we were doing 2,000-3,000 home loans a year, so you would expect more complaints. Comparing us to other mortgage companies is like comparing Sears with some mom-and-pop store.”