Consumer complaint received 2022-12-15
Company: Mr. Cooper Group Inc.
State: IL
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: VA mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
My husband And I had bought our home in XXXX through a VA loan serviced with XXXX. In XXXX of XXXX, we turned in our homestead exemption letter from XXXX XXXX stating that we are XXXX XXXX exempt from property taxes for my husband being XXXX XXXX XXXX from the XXXX. This took out payment from {$840.00} a month to {$590.00} a month. An absolute blessing. This year, in XXXX of XXXX, My loan was bought out by Mr. Cooper Mortgage Company. We received a single letter in XX/XX/XXXX stating there was nothing we needed to do on our end and all will go on as it has. Payments stayed exactly the same as nothing had changed. XXXX XXXX I logged into our mortgage account and saw a red exclamation point stating we were {$1300.00} short in our escrow. Upon further investigation I saw they raised our mortgage from {$590.00} to {$890.00}. I looked into our escrow and saw they reattached property taxes onto our bill. I called, and was told yes, they could see my paperwork, but no- they did not input it. Negligence on their end. I was told to resubmit our paperwork to some emails and it will be fixed in XXXX business days. On XX/XX/XXXX I received an email letter stating that they had in fact contacted XXXX XXXX and confirmed our exemption aswell as everything should be reflecting such. I login and see it is in fact not corrected. I called again, and was told it will take another 5 days to show. So I wait. Once I finally see the property taxes were taken off, my payment was not reflecting such. Another phone call later and I realize my escrow is in fact short from XXXX cutting a check when the exemption was submitted in XXXX, not a big deal- I was on the phone with the tax dept and I verified the exact amount short of {$1300.00} and I paid that amount while on the phone with Mr. Cooper XXXX The payment was still not reflecting this fix, so I had to request they run a new escrow analysis again to reflect the correction. When the escrow analysis was reran, they stuck the property taxes back onto the account. I called, and every single time I would have to speak someone I always got different answers, and every single person was telling me I only had a partial exemption even though this was incorrect. This outraged me. I was told once again by different people to resubmit my paperwork, and I was told multiple times I had to send it to XXXX different emails, so I did. At this point my grace period is running out as I do not want to give them extra money they do not require from me. I only had a few days left in my grace period so I made another phone call on XX/XX/XXXX to check on the status. This person proceeds to tell me I have to wait an entire year for them to fix my mortgage. She claimed they wanted to receive a tax bill showing all XXXX to take off my property taxes. They did not want to accept my exemption letter from XXXX XXXX. I'm almost positive that is illegal as XXXX XXXX tells me the letter they give me should be the only thing needed to remove the taxes off our bill. When I try to correct this woman she continues to tell me she is correct and I am wrong so I hung up. This company has made me feel so defeated. I started sobbing in my living room. She calls me back and I am sobbing on the phone with her, telling her nobody is listening to me, I'm not trying to scam anyone or anything so I do not understand why they are fighting me so much over something we have the privilege of having now, granted it took my husband doing 10 years in service and becoming XXXX to get it. It took me sobbing on the phone for someone to finally listen to me. She then contacted her XXXX, and her XXXX contacted someone in the tax dept and they said give it XXXX hours to be resolved. XXXX hours later, sure enough my property taxes were remitted off the account finally, but my payment was still not reflecting so, as I only had about XXXX more days of grace period left, I called again. So, on XX/XX/XXXX I logged online and did a quick live chat to see if they had a time when it would be ready so I could pay. The guy online proceeds to tell me my new payment will be {$610.00} as I am still short in my escrow another {$300.00}. What? I have no alert on my account stating I am short another {$300.00} as not even XXXX weeks ago I had submitted the shortage of {$1300.00} to my escrow WITH the tax dept on the phone. I had verified the number and everything before sending payment. The online chat guy would not give me a clear answer, so I ended the chat and made the phone call. I sat on the phone with a lady for XXXX minutes as she was calculating everything to try to figure out where this XXXX was coming from. She could see the XXXX, but nothing was indicating WHY it was XXXX short after me paying XXXX. She ends up putting me on hold and when she comes back she proceeds to tell me that Mr.Cooper likes to keep extra money in the escrow as policy. A policy I've never been informed of. As stated above, the only thing I have ever received from Mr. Cooper was the transfer paper telling me not to worry although I had plenty to worry about as they didn't input my paperwork. I have never received any policies or disclosures from this company. Never. This blew my mind as XXXX never took extra money from me, they only took what was needed to pay my taxes and insurance. And I was also upset it took her XXXX minutes to tell me it's just policy. 

This has been XXXX of the absolute worst companies I've ever had to deal with. I tried to list all the important details, but this does not account for social media messages, online chats, and all of the other phone calls I made to them trying to correct our mortgage. I can not believe this company would not accept our homestead exemption, or the fact that it was given to them form the beginning and they were negligent in putting it into their system correctly. I feel this is negligent and I am also worried they will mysteriously lose my escrow money as others have stated all over the internet. I'm very suspicious of this company, again, nobody would listen to me or take me seriously until I was sobbing on the phone. My account is finally okay, but with this increase from {$590.00} to {$610.00} I am very wary of what they're actually doing. I did research this " policy '' afterwards of being notified, and I am upset I had to learn this way rather than Mr. Cooper sending me informative paperwork. As stated above, when the resolution letter for the taxes was approved on XX/XX/XXXX, that email stated I would receive paperwork about it, which I never did. They will hide everything from you if you do not stay on top of them. This is how they treat veterans.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation