Consumer complaint received 2018-10-09
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: TX
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
I purchased my home XX/XX/2018 with my first payment being due XX/XX/2018. They sold my load to XXXX XXXX who is using JP Morgan Chase as the servicer of the loan. I called immediately when I got their letter to advise that I wanted to pay my mortgage every two weeks so I could save on interest. I was advised they had a new program that would accomplish that but it wouldn't be ready until XX/XX/XXXX and to call back. 

I called back a couple days before XX/XX/XXXX to see if their program was ready and when I was speaking with the rep I told her I wanted to pay every two weeks to reduce the principle on my loan to save interest and she said as long as I paid the full amount before the XXXX of the month, the payment would be considered on time and I would accomplish what I wanted. 

After making the first months payment, half on XX/XX/XXXX and half on XX/XX/XXXX, I logged in to check to be sure all was applied as expected and found out they didn't apply my first half payment on XX/XX/XXXX until the second half was paid on XX/XX/XXXX. I called to discuss this with them and was advised that if I signed up for their automatic bi-weekly payment program, that I would accomplish what I wanted which led me to believe that my payments every two weeks would be applied when paid. Because I had to pay for XXXX   by paying 1/2 on XX/XX/XXXX and 1/2 on XX/XX/XXXX, I had to make a full payment for XX/XX/XXXX before XX/XX/XXXX so I paid my full payment on XX/XX/XXXX. 

When they took out the first automatic payment on XX/XX/XXXX, I logged in to make sure this time that it had applied as expected, I found that they didn't apply my payment so once again, I called. That was when I found out that they won't apply the payment until the second one is received which was totally misleading to me because I made it clear numerous times that my issue with paying twice before the XXXX of each month was that they didn't apply the first half when received and was given the impression that this automatic program would accomplish this. 

As it is, all this program does is take my money and it sits there, NOT saving me any interest on their end because it's not applied to anything and NOT earning any interest on my end because it's not in my savings account anymore. At the end of the day, JP Morgan Chase associates do not know how to advise consumers about how the program works, they don't listen to the consumer because I was very clear in what my expectation was and I lost the interest I could have earned on the money they took and did nothing with. 

Their program is flawed and I believe there are more consumers out there who haven't taken the time to make sure their payments are being applied as expected and who would be upset if they found this out. This program was new in XX/XX/XXXX so there may not be a lot of victims at this time which makes it a perfect time to register a complaint in hopes that they can rectify the issue before it gets worse. When I registered a complaint with JP Morgan Chase today, XX/XX/XXXX, they didn't understand what I was saying, how it didn't benefit me in the way I had expected and was told so I don't feel like they plan to do anything to make their program better or at minimum accurately infor their consumers. 

I feel that consumers need to be advised to check their mortgage payments online to ensure the servicers of their loans are processing the payments correctly. If I hadn't checked every time I made a payment and just assumed they were applying it to my loan in the way I expected them to, I may have continued on this program and continued to lose money on interest by giving my money to them to do nothing with when it could have been in my savings account earning interest. 

I can save more on interest by paying an extra {$130.00} per month on the first of each month reducing my prinicple every month vs letting them take half the payment bi-weekly thereby reducing my principle only twice a year. And, I'm earning interest while the money is in my savings vs in their bank earning nothing because I'm not paying it ahead of time but instead, when it's due.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation