Five Points Media - Who We Are
Why we are exposing the crimes committed by brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station
We have noticed a trend amongst the many visitors who are now coming to our website repeatedly, sometimes several times on the same day. They often review an article, linking to it from social media, a search engine, or an email or other link, and then they go to our “Testimonials” or the “Our Team” page. Sometimes, they go to our commercial services website and review the counterpart pages there. This is natural as people want to know who is making the allegations.
However, when we see the same visitor go to those same pages eight, nine, ten, or more times, it becomes clear that they are trying to figure out for themselves who we are and why we are telling this story.
We understand that Verico the Mortgage Station is a well-established brokerage and that they have been able to maintain the façade of being an honest and ethical business, at least until now. However, the same can be said about every white-collar criminal who has ever been arrested, convicted, and sent to prison. In this case, the crimes are particularly heinous as they are being committed against seniors who can in some cases be easily manipulated, and who depend on their life savings and their homes for survival. It is also a serious matter as these brokers are licensed by the province and are supposed to be honourable in their dealings, but honest people do not commit the crime of usury, also known as loan sharking, and they do not skim hundreds of dollars worth of illegal and unauthorized fees out of a mortgage being brokered for a senior.
For decades, “Teflon Don” skated away from prosecution for many crimes he was known to have committed, but that is all catching up on him now.
The results of the first investigation show how these brokers do business. That detective was somehow motivated by these brokers, who boast sales of six million dollars a year, to bury these allegations and he did not even try to hide his bias as he did not in any way even attempt to contact the victim or ask for any evidence. He just listened to the brokers and then filed what appears to have been a scathing attack against our producer. Of course, that all changed after our producer provided irrefutable evidence directly to the Chief of the South Simcoe Police Service and to the Inspector in charge of the Criminal Investigations Division, and he notified them of his intent to file a request for an investigation of corruption by the OPP and the Office of the Independent Police Review Director.
We have talked a lot about the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station, but now we feel we should clarify who we are and why we are producing this documentary.
Five Points Media is a non-profit-motivated social enterprise that works together with a provincially registered not-for-profit called the Ontario Community Awareness Network. Together, these benevolent organizations provide fully donated video production services to charities, not-for-profits, and compassionate community groups in Barrie, Innisfil, and Oro-Medonte. We also sometimes go outside of that region to report on issues and events that affect a larger portion of the population.
During the past nine years, we have donated more than 300 videos to a minimum of 180 local charities and groups, valued at more than six hundred thousand dollars.
We charge nothing for our services, and we are self-financed so we can limit the influence of advertisers and the government. In 2020, our team was honoured by being voted to finalist status for the “Paying It Forward” award of altruism that is presented each year by the Greater Barrie Chamber of Commerce and the City of Barrie. We have also received awards reflecting the value of our contributions from the Women and Children’s Shelter of Barrie and St John Ambulance Barrie Simcoe Muskoka.
Our contributions to Barrie, Innisfil, and Oro-Medonte have been credited with raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations for dozens of charities and community organizations.
Although much of our talented crew is young and still honing their skills, our team is led by John Ironside, a former international journalist and producer of documentaries who has worked in media all over the world since the late 1980s. To this day, more than thirty years later, he remains the youngest producer to have ever had his work shown in full format on stations of the CBC network, and he has earned multiple awards for his work, mostly about social issues.
Prior to that, John served our country as a member of the armed forces.
John’s combination of training and experience made him a useful videographer for groups like Greenpeace in the United Kingdom. Then our producer moved on to become a war correspondent for the British equivalent of CNN in Bosnia and the Middle East. That led him to print journalism in Athens, where he was the Deputy Editor of a national English-language newspaper owned by the Washington Times.
Our contributions to our community have produced accolades and awards, but the reason we do it is to help those in need and who do not have a voice.
John served with distinction as a soldier in the Canadian Army.
Then he became an environmental activist.
He worked with and produced videos for Greenpeace and Sea Action.
Many of his recordings were seen around the world.
He also worked a full time member of the crew of activist ships.
He recorded news footage in warzones like Bosnia and the Middle East . . .
Then he became a photojournalist and then Deputy Editor . . .
Of the national English language newspaper of Greece . . .
That was owned by the Washington Times.
His reporting and photos from the region were used around the world.
Our work at Five Points Media has been recognized by many charities.
Resulting in various awards and certificates of appreciation.
Including the Women and Children's Shelter and St John Ambulance
John has worked in various roles for a variety of commercial video production companies that produced programming for PBS, Global, CTV, CBC, and others, earning more than 5,000 credits over thirty years.
John credits his greatest job as being part of the team at Five Points Media, which he started in 2014. During that nine-year period, our crew has provided a voice to many hundreds or thousands of people who otherwise would have been denied expressing their views through mainstream media, which cares more about advertising revenue than relevant community programming.
There is a high financial value to the services we provide, but the main motivation for our work is to help those who are economically or socially oppressed by a society that shows little if any concern for the well-being of those who are not wealthy.
We include here a video containing a montage of the testimonials recorded by those we have assisted about our services. We welcome you to watch it, and also the full versions and others testimonial videos that were not included in this edit that can be found on our testimonials page.
It is also worth noting that Five Points Media is a respected local media service that has worked with just about every local public service and institution, ranging from City Hall and the office of the Mayor, through to the Public Library, the Barrie Police Service, the Nottawasaga OPP and a plethora of connected agencies, the Barrie Fire and Emergency Services, ambulance services, Georgian College, Royal Victoria Hospital, retirement homes, children’s organizations, Base Borden, and the list goes on.
Our team is also held in high esteme by the local arts community, as is demonstrated in this review by Iain Moggach, the Artistic Director of Theatre by the Bay
"John and his team are by far some of the most dedicated good samaritans in Barrie. They contribute so much back to the community and are also unafraid of exposing injustice when they see it.
I have been particularly impressed with their commitment to supporting not-for-profits in the area. Whether it is creating promotional materials to help promote events, conducting interviews with staff for sharing on social media, or spreading the word amongst their network about the going-ons of their network-members, Five Points Media consistently goes the extra mile to make Barrie a better place.
I have been very fortunate to work with Five Points Media on a couple of occasions now and speak highly of them to anyone who asks. I consider this review a tiny gesture of gratitude for their incredible support.
I encourage anyone reading this to join their network, follow what they do on their active social media channels, and for goodness' sake, if you can hire them: do it."
We also possess full production facilities, including a standard studio with a full-sized green screen wall, a fully functional kitchen set, a broadcast quality all-glass sound booth, full location facilities, multiple 4K cameras, and post-production facilities that are second to none in the region. To the best of our knowledge, no other facility comparable to ours exists north of the Greater Toronto Area.
Perhaps the biggest consideration when assessing credibility is the fact that we are here, posting our articles and presenting our evidence, in our own names, while taking credit and accepting full responsibility for what our team has said and written about the criminal actions committed by the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station and the likely negligence level of apathy shown by the management team of Verico Financial Group and the board of directors of HomeEquity Bank.
This simple fact is significant and important because so far, we are the only ones willing to stand up, and that should speak volumes.
Why are the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station, management at HomeEquity Bank, and the board of directors at HomeEquity Bank not willing to discuss this story on camera or at all?
It was through the CHIP Reverse Mortgage that our producer was defrauded, so how many other seniors will be defrauded before either of these provincially regulated financial services stands up?
These multi-million and multi-billion dollar corporations would never allow this story to be told about them for a full year unless they have no choice because they know we have the proof to back our allegations.
It is also significant that a year has passed since we first reported on this story, and yet none of the three corporations we have spoken about have found cause to challenge our claims in a court of law. We are talking about companies that are worth between five million dollars a year and five point seven billion dollars. However, they are all afraid to seek injunctive relief or file for a cease-and-desist order against a small not-for-profit community channel.
If we were not telling the truth, one or all of these corporations would have filed action in the Superior Court, but they have not done so because in Canada, those who file nuisance SLAPP lawsuits are heavily fined, and they would be open to humiliation for being taken to school by a comparative mouse to their elephant.
The reason for their fear is that we are telling the truth and we can back up our claims with evidence.
The roughly $500.00 grift is not the reason for this documentary, but it is the catalyst that caused us to seek support to produce a program about how some mortgage brokers defraud seniors. Verico Financial Group is not the only financial brokerage being discussed within our documentary, but from what we are hearing from residents in Innisfil and Simcoe County, they are going to easily fill a large portion of the on-camera interviews.
Decent people choose not to deal with companies or individuals who defraud seniors, and the only way they can be safe is to be informed about what brokers to avoid.
In addition to our charitable contributions, our team has also exposed crimes that would otherwise have gone unknown to the public and been ignored by the police. Many of those reports resulted in the civil and criminal prosecution of those who caused harm to people without influence who are most often denied a voice.
In one case, when we were reporting on the lies being told by anti-vaxxers at illegal rallies in Barrie, an unknown individual drove by our studios three separate times and shot out the windows of our van with a rifle in a vain attempt to silence us.
Our producer responded by posting 4K surveillance images of the shooter and his vehicle, and by calling out the shooter to come to our door to discuss his views, and he even said he could bring his rifle if doing so made him feel like a real man.
In 2020, our commitment to our community resulted in our crew being nominated and voted as finalists for the "Paying It Forward" award for altruism that is presented each year by the Greater Barrie Chamber of Commerce and the City of Barrie.
Contributions to the community and reporting on abuses are cornerstones of true media, and we are proud to say that is what we do at Five Points Media.
We have heard from the Inspector in charge of Criminal Investigations at the South Simcoe Police Service about some of the stories being told about us by the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station while they are hiding in their office, refusing to explain or justify their actions in a public forum. We welcome you to draw your own conclusions based on who is supporting the claims and who is hiding in the shadows.
Once presented with the evidence, the top cops at the South Simcoe Police Service launched a specialist fraud investigation, and that should tell you a lot about the validity of the allegations.
We have also been told that the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station produced for the first detective a fraudulent document that was intended to falsely refute the true rate of interest charged, which was 120% per year. That rate is usury, a criminal offence punishable by a prison sentence of up to five years. The brokers have consistently refused to provide our producer with a copy of that document, which they claim he signed. Clearly, the fake nature of that document is obvious, as when brought to their attention, the truly irrefutable evidence caused the Chief and Inspector of the South Simcoe Police Service to set aside the conclusions of the first biased detective and assign the matter to a specialist financial fraud investigator. We welcome all inquiries but have been advised not to release unredacted versions of our evidence at this time.
True copies of that evidence have been provided to the South Simcoe Police Service and to HomeEquity Bank.
