AG sues Springfield mortgage lender

Attorney General Jay Nixon announced June 23 that a lawsuit had been filed in the city of St. Louis Circuit Court against TE Mortgage Corp., 1540 W. Battlefield. The lawsuit named TE Mortgage and its president, Terry E. Elliott, as defendants.

The lawsuit alleges that TE Mortgage has made at least 300 telemarketing calls, soliciting the sale of mortgage services to households on the state’s No Call list.

Jim Gardner, press secretary for the Missouri office of the Attorney General, said the alleged calls were made from July 1, 2001, to May 24, 2005.

However, Aaron Lyons, Elliott’s attorney, said the calls were made when the business operated as Liberty Financial and before Elliott became involved.

Nathan P. Reuter, of Columbia, and Daniel L. Hargrave, of Nevada, started Liberty Financial in August 1999. In March 2002, Elliott became president, moved the company to Springfield and changed the name to TE Mortgage, according to secretary of state filings.

“There was a past link several years ago,” Lyons said. “Unfortunately, the filings with the secretary of state’s office can’t give a full history of a split between two companies, and that’s what happened here.”

Nixon is asking the court to order TE Mortgage to pay civil penalties of up to $5,000 per call, the maximum allowed by law, plus attorney’s fees and court costs. If granted, the penalties could exceed $1.5 million.

In issuing the restraining order, the court ordered TE Mortgage to refrain from calling residential telephone numbers on the list. Six-year-old TE Mortgage, formerly Liberty Financial Corp., is a licensed mortgage lender in Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Alaska.

Gardner suggests businesses obtain the No Call list to stay in compliance. The cost is $25 per telephone area code per quarter, or $600 a year.

“Before you do any telephone soliciting in the state of Missouri, you obtain a copy of the No Call list from the attorney general’s office, and don’t call anybody that’s on the list,” he said.

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