About a month after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) levied a civil penalty of $7.5 million on St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Mortgage Investors Corp. for violating the federal Do Not Call Registry, the company announced that it would be laying off about 380 employees.
According to a report in the Tampa Bay Business Journal, company owner Bill Edwards wrote in a letter to city officials that the layoffs are the result of "unforeseeable circumstances due to the recent sudden and dramatic spike in interest rates and, more importantly, the fact that the secondary market for mortgage-backed securities has become extremely illiquid."
The layoffs will impact about 211 call center agents and about 120 loan processors, according to the report. Each employee will receive 60 days of severance pay.
The layoffs come after the FTC fined Mortgage Investors, which sells loan-refinancing services to military veterans, for calling nearly 5.4 million telephone numbers on the DNC Registry. It was reportedly the largest fine for a violation of DNC rules to date.