I knew a guy (friend of mine) who was involved with one of these places a couple years ago. It was JUST like that video. Young kids, counterculture types, car salesmen, the whole bit. My friend was involved peripherally with the company and he’d call me to ask questions about appraisal stuff.

The way they ran their program was they’d start the kid out on the phones doing telemarketing – and you don’t even want to know how they got their lists. If the kid could last 30 days and bring in some qualified leads that closed they’d move up to account rep where they’d spend their time doing the grunt work on those leads. Enough of those and they’d move up to account manager where they were running their own team.

This company would not write a loan unless they could net at least $10,000 out of it. Some of these 18-year old, 22-year old high school dropouts were making $10,000, $15,000 and even $20,000 a month. Living large, bling bling and all that but most of them had no clue what to do with that kind of money.

The guys running the company were the most arrogant bastards I ever met. They hit me up to be their local appraiser, to which I politely declined because I was “too busy”. Truth is, I didn’t want my name associated with any of their paper. My participation was limited to giving technical advice on a couple occasions.

My friend lasted there about 6 months before he realized he couldn’t turn these guys around. So much for that plan. When he left they had about 150 employees, were leasing an entire floor in one of the high rises in Sorrento Valley, and the owners were swimming in cash. Needless to say, that company is gone now. It imploded about 6 months after my friend left, which would have been in early 2005 or so.

I’m sure those guys are still out there, though, hitting the phones everyday.