Ameriquest Platinum Mastercard Credit Card Review

Who Was Ameriquest? - Ameriquest actually was started as a Savings and Loan institution in Orange County California in 1979. They were then called Long Beach Savings and Loans. In 1994, it was converted to an mortgage originator and renamed Long Beach Mortgage Company. In 1997, part of their business which funded loans by mortgage brokers was spun off and taken public. The remaining entity was renamed Ameriquest Capital, and remained private. ACC Capital Holdings consisted of three parts: Ameriquest Mortgage Company, Argent Mortgage, and AMC Mortgage Services. On August 31, 2008, Citigroup acquired its wholesale origination-lending unit, Argent Mortgage (which was it's wholesale originating-lending unite), AMC Mortgage Services (which was it;s loan-servicing unite), and shut down its retail-lending unit, Ameriquest Mortgage.

Ameriquest Mortgage Encounters With FTC and State Attorneys - Ameriquest Mortgage history has been a series of dodging the FTC and State attorney generals. The reason is because they were involved in the mortgage business and were one of the players who were involved in mortgages where the income of the applicant was never verified. They were also very aggressive in their sales tactics, be it in telemarketing or their sales people.

In 2007, the District Court of California passed an judgement for permanent injunction prohibiting Ameriquest from calling people on do not call registry with their authorization in writing¹. They also settled with the FTC and paid $1 million in fines².

In 2006, Ameriquest agreed to a $325 million nationwide settlement with State Attorneys for predatory lending practices³. In that same year, they announced that they were closing their branches and firing about 3,800 employees. Many analysts were puzzled about why they closed their branches, but there was speculation that by just relying on mortgage brokers, it fell outside the scope of the nationwise settlement with the State Attorneys.

How the Ameriquest Platinum MasterCard Worked? - Even though they no longer exist as an entity, they were actually very well known. The Texas Rangers baseball park was once called Ameriquest Park until March of 2007. The Ameriquest Platinum Mastercard is designed for Ameriquest customers. You can earn 5% rebates with this card and use the rebates for refinance or home loans. Rebates are also earned for balance transfers and cash advance. Rebates can be redeemed for up to $1,500 on a refinance loan, $500 on a home purchase loan following your next qualifying Ameriquest mortgage.

That means that if you spend $30,000 a year, you will get $1,500 in cash back which can be used towards your mortgage refinance. If you spend $10,000, you get $500 in cash back which is the maximum rebate you could use for a new mortgage.

Who Was This Card Targeted At? - As Ameriquest Mortgage was in the "sub prime", it comes as no surprise that HSBC is actually the issuer of this card. HSBC would eventually buy Orchard and Household Bank (two sub prime issuers) and make it their main credit card market in the US. Hence, I think this card is targeted at the very folks who would approach them for their mortgage because of their lax supervision on income verification. For folks who knew they were definitely going to use them for their mortgage, this card would get them some savings if they spent the required amount to earn the maximum rebates.

Having said that, most folks should not even consider this card.