Consumer complaint received 2020-11-05
Company: Financial Freedom Mortgage, LLC
State: MD
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Improper use of your report
Sub-issue: Reporting company used your report improperly

Complaint:
On Friday XX/XX/2020, I was contacted by Financial Freedom Mortgage LLC ( FFM ), located at XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX  XXXX, NJ XXXX ), for the purposes of obtaining a mortgage refinance rate quote. I was told by the opening sales person that they would need to run a soft inquiry of my credit report and I consented to a soft inquiry only, since I was still shopping for rates and was not ready to initiate the refinance yet. I continued with the phone conversation and was transferred to another sales person who told me that I was pre-approved for a loan. The sales person did not advise me that he was running a hard pull on my credit report and at no time did I give authorization for them to do so. The next day my credit monitoring service alerted me of the hard pull. FFM used a third party, XXXX XXXX XXXX ( XXXX ), to run the report. I contacted XXXX that day and they advised that FFM ran not one, but two hard pulls of my credit report on the same day. I filed a complaint with them and advised that I did not consent. On Monday XX/XX/2020, I contacted FFM to file a complaint and I first spoke to XXXX ( refused to provide me with his last name ) who advised that he was the Loan Officer Manager. I explained that I did not give consent for a hard pull and he advised that I should have assumed that when I was pre-qualified that they were going to run a hard pull. I continued to explained that the first salesperson I spoke with made it clear to me that only a soft pull would be conducted. XXXX was very defensive and combative and abruptly hung up on me. I called back and insisted to speak to his manager. After not allowing me to speak with anyone else after twenty or so minutes he finally relented and transferred me to his supervisor, who identified herself as XXXX XXXX. Ms. XXXX advised me of the same information that I should have assumed that they were running a credit report since I was applying for a mortgage refinance. I advised her that I am well aware of that a hard pull would have to be done eventually and that I was shopping for the best Annual Percentage Rate ( APR ), and that I was lead to believe that they were only conducting a soft pull of my credit report. Ms. XXXX advised that she would have XXXX XXXX, who is one of their Vice Presidents, contact me. On Thursday XX/XX/2020, Mr. XXXX called and I advised him that I did not want to do business with his company and that they never had my authorization to conduct a hard pull of my credit report which violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act. He said he would look into it and the conversation ended. During the week of XX/XX/2020, I received a letter in the mail from FFM advising me that they pulled my credit report. I have not heard anything additional from FFM. As a result of their hard inquiry of my credit report, it adversely affected my credit score by reducing it multiple points.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation