Consumer complaint received 2018-08-23
Company: FIFTH THIRD FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: GA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: FHA mortgage
Issue: Struggling to pay mortgage

Complaint:
This is my 2nd complaint against Fifth Third Bank regarding my daughter, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX   mortgage account with Fifth Third. I, her dad, have a durable power of attorney to handle her financial matters. As noted in my previous complaint, my daughter is recovering from a XXXX that has caused her to be out of work for over 3 years ; over 3 years ago she had a XXXX XXXX & is still recovering. Also, her house caught fire on XX/XX/XXXX ; Meanwhile, she became delinquent on her mortgage and car loan payments ; her mortgage account is now current but she still needs mortgage payment assistance - so we filed the 1st hardship application in XX/XX/XXXX and we were denied financial assistance because she did not have enough income and some other reasons that were not adequately explained. So on XX/XX/XXXX we filed the 2nd hardship application. We checked the status of the 2nd hardship application on Friday, XX/XX/XXXX, by talking to XXXX XXXX on the phone ; we were told that one of the other reasons we did not get payment assistance on the 1st hardship application is because underwriting tried to qualify my daughter under a Loan Modification Program which is a permanent restructuring of the mortgage whereby terms and/or loan rate is modified to make the payments affordable ; I told XXXX over the phone that it makes no sense to tell me underwriting modified the loan by increasing the terms and the monthly payments increased and that is the other reason why she was denied hardship payment assistance. I asked for a copy of the new payment amortization schedule and was told that it was not available because Fifth Third does keep those documents - I told him that makes no sense because you have to keep an audit trail for all loan modifications. So basically something is not right with what I was told. So I sent the following email On XX/XX/XXXX to XXXX XXXX and CC 'd several other Fifth Third customers service employees. BEGINNING OF EMAIL TO FIFTH THIRD... Hardship Application Please let us know ASAP what the status of the 2nd hardship application is. Underwriter 1. Please have you underwriter send me some type of verification showing that my daughter was denied a mortgage modification because her payments went up when the mortgage term increased and/or the rate was lowered or a combination of both. Like I said to you on the phone, this has to be some new math and I want to see it in writing. 2. Why don't we qualify for the FHA forbearance program? - allows FHA homeowners to roll any missed or deferred payments into the mortgage balance 3. The fifth third website says something a little different than our discussion on Friday ( which made it sound like there are no options available )... note : there was an attachment from their website which is not shown here. In addition, please explain how your mortgage customers can get mortgage payment assistance when they lose their jobs and have no income but my daughter who also lost her job can not. And it appears Fifth Third has tried every possible mortgage payment assistance options available including freezing payments for 3 - 6 months. Short Sale We are not interested in a short sale - due to my daughter 's XXXX ; she wants to remain in her home Job Search My daughter is actively looking for a job. Fifth Thirds Reemployment Program Also, can you give us more information about Fifth Thirds Homeowner Reemployment program ( https : XXXX ) to help mortgage borrowers find jobs. END OF EMAIL TO FIFTH THIRD The above email was sent on XX/XX/XXXX and so far no one has replied to my email ( today 's date is XX/XX/XXXX ). So today, I called to get a status update on the 2nd hardship application ( filed on XX/XX/XXXX ) and I was told by XXXX XXXX that the 2nd file was never opened! So I said it sounds like Firth Third dropped the ball again - she did not like that answer. But here is the reason I was given... the 2nd hardship application ( filed on XX/XX/XXXX ) looks like it came in on the same day the 1st hardship application was denied so it looks like the 2 applications got mixed up!!! I said XXXX that makes no sense because each application should have a time stamp when it came in and/or a separate case/tracking # for each occurrence ( so if there was a third hardship application, how would they not get that one mixed up and make the wrong decision to close the file and meanwhile the borrower is struggling ). She basically did not have a reasonable answer for this screw-up. So she told me to call back in 3 days to see if the file was opened. Unbelievable that a large company with a ton of people can operate this way. This is a similar experience that I pointed out in my first complaint stating that we never received any mail explaining that my daughter 's house was going to foreclosure because Fifth Third sent all of the mail to the wrong address. But to their credit, they admitted it was their error. But my daughter would have lost her home to foreclosure over this small overlooked detail had I not taken a second look at the hardship application to see that I gave them the correct mailing address. This is why I am writing these complaints - our family could have been totally devastated financially because of poor customer service and I am even more upset about this latest Fifth Third oversight which adds another delay to processing the 2nd hardship application. I would not doubt if other Fifth Third customers lost their homes and are suffering because of poor customer service. Hopefully Fifth Third will improve their processes.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation