Discrimination rears its ugly head
When we got our last home mortgage, we used Mortgage Master, a company recommended by a friend whom I trust. It had excellent mortgage rates, almost a full percentage better than Bank of America, for instance. Both my friend and I put down more than 20 percent on our speculation-inflated houses. Only he and his wife are both white. My wife and I are a mixed race couple. It turns out Mortgage Master apparently discriminated against us and about 200 other blacks on this basis, overcharging us on our fees. We got a letter from the Mass. Attorney general notifying us of the settlement. We’ll get something between $100 and $1,000. But mostly, we’ll get a wake-up call. Mortgage Master’s president tried to sweep the whole thing under the rug, according to this piece in the Boston Herald.