Consumer complaint received 2024-01-26
Company: Freedom Mortgage Company
State: VA
Product: Credit reporting or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Problem with a company's investigation into an existing problem
Sub-issue: Their investigation did not fix an error on your report

Complaint:
The issue is regarding an over 30 day late payment note on my and my mom 's credit histories all stemming from a payment and language-access issue. 

The issue first began when my mom went on the Freedom Mortgage site to submit payment in XXXX that was due on XX/XX/XXXX. However, there was an issue with the payment and it did not go through correctly. Unfortunately, my mom did not realize the payment did not go through and made her standard mortgage payment on XX/XX/XXXX that was due on XX/XX/XXXX. It is not until she received a letter in the mail in XXXX stating that Freedom Mortgage had not received her XXXX mortgage payment that she realized was behind in her payments. 

As soon as she realizes this, she calls on XX/XX/XXXX to understand and rectify the issue. In that call, she is connected with an individual who she is able to explain that there must have an issue with the payment processing. She was able to talk to this person in both XXXX and Englishmy mother is a native XXXX  speaker and has limited English proficient. She told the individual that she had made the payment, but it must have gone to the wrong account. The Freedom Mortgage agent ( " Agent 1 ) then confirms to her that she can see that she tried to make a payment, but that it seemed to have been erroneously placed in the escrow account instead. Recognizing the issue was due to a misallocation of funds, Agent 1 tells her he will fix it and reverse the late charge. See FM Payment History showing a reversed late fee charge on XX/XX/XXXX. Agent 1 then tells my mother that as long as she makes the payment for next month, she will be fine and there will be no negative impact. 

My mother then makes the payment on XX/XX/XXXX. See FM Payment History. In making that payment online, she sees that her account is still reflecting that she is behind on her mortgage so she calls again around or on XX/XX/XXXX. During her first call, she is connect to another Freedom Mortgage agent ( " Agent 2 '' ). In that call, she first asks for a XXXX-speaking individual, but is told by Agent 2 that the office does not have any XXXX-speaking agents. My mother then tries to explain the situation in English -- while explaining English is not her language -- and Agent 2 just keeps restating that no payments have been made that she can help only in English. My mom asks if she can be connected to someone else and Agent 2 states again that Freedom Mortgage did not have anyone in XXXX and that they would need to find an interpreter because agents only speak English. Agent 2 then tells my mother she will have to wait until they can find an interpreter. After waiting some time and feeling like she had been mistreated because of her XXXX  needs, my mother hangs up and calls again to try to talk to someone else. 

My mother makes another call that same day. During the second call, my mother is connected to a different Freedom Mortgage agent ( " Agent 3 '' ). Having been told there are no XXXX-speaking agent, my mom then tries to explain the situation in English. She explains to Agent 3 that she had been told that the payments had been resolved and her credit would not be affected. She further explains she had never had any type of issues with her mortgage before, and that this was all due to a series of mistranslations, misunderstandings, and errors ; she then drew attention to the reversed late fee as explanation as to why she had thought the issue had been resolved during that XXXX call. Agent 3 then explained to my mother the situation that occurred, that the escrow disbursement was not related to her payments to the mortgage like she had been told, and that she needed to make the two payments that month to get her mortgage up to date. She told Agent 3 that she would make the payments, but she wanted them to erase the mark against our credit histories since the issue that occurred due to misinformation she had been given ( she told him, why else would Agent 1 had reversed the late fee in XXXX ) and Agent 3 agreed. He said that as long as she made the two payments, our credit histories would not be affected because of this mistake. My mother then completed the first of these two payments over the phone that same day with Agent 3. She then made the second payment online on XX/XX/XXXX, thereby completing the terms Agent 3 had set forth and becoming up to date on the mortgage. See FM Payment History. 

Since this issue, I have submitted three separate credit disputes to XXXX ( on XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX ) and two to XXXX, without any success. Further, during my third dispute with XXXX, the agent specifically told me they would not remove the charge unless the creditor, Freedom Mortgage, agreed. So on that same day, XX/XX/XXXX, I also called Freedom Mortgage to ask them to rectify the situation. I was on the phone with Freedom Mortgage for an hour and twenty-four minutes. During my call, I was first connected with a Freedom Mortgage agent ( " Agent 4 '' ). I explained to them the full situation, along with the language issues, and Agent 4 agreed that given all the errors that our credit histories should be rectified by that she was not authorized to make that approval and that she would transfer me to a supervisor to complete the process. 

I was then connected to a Freedom Mortgage supervisor ( " Supervisor '' ). Supervisor immediately made it clear to me that she was not interested in my dispute and that I was just wasting her time. Supervisor literally started the conversation with " so what happened? '' To which I responded, " what do you mean, like you want me to give a synopsis of what I want or whats happened? '' Supervisor then sighs and was like " so what I understand is your mom missed payments. '' So then I went ahead was like thats not a synopsis of what happened, and then summarized again the issue and my ask, to which she responds with, well thats not gon na happen. Thats not going to change. After this, Supervisor then, but go ahead explain the issue you think happened. I then responded with, " excuse me, did you just say that the decision isnt going to change? '' Supervisor responded, the conclusion was made and thats not going to change. At this point, I became very infuriated and asked Supervisor, " so then whats the point of continuing this conversation or me talking to you when nothing I say is going to matter and the decision isnt going to change. '' That's when Supervisor tried to backtrack and say " no maam what you said does matter. '' To which I interjected, " but if nothing I say will change the decision whats the point of continuing this conversation. Why do you want to know what I have to say if the decision is the decision like you said. What do you even want to talk to me. Supervisor then snapped and said, " because you insisted to speak with a supervisor after talking to the first person. '' I then responded, " no I really didnt, she was the one who talked about sending me to a supervisor because she was not authorized to approve a credit report change. '' When I said this, Supervisor placed me on hold for around twenty minutes. 

After being on hold for about twenty minutes, Supervisor came back and said, " I reviewed the calls in XXXX, I concluded the investigation, the conclusion remains the same. '' I asked her if she was qualified to do the review and whether she spoke XXXX, she claimed she did not need to speak XXXX because " no XXXX was spoken. '' I then responded, " do I get any copy of the transcripts or the record with the analysis of how you came to that conclusion? '' Supervisor responded, " you will have to get an attorney and get them ... '' to which I interjected, " I am an attorney. '' So Supervisor added, " ok well ma'am you will have to subpoena the records. '' To clarify, I asked, " so this is the extent of the investigation at this point and nothing further will be done? So youre telling me what you just did is all that will be done? '' Supervisor was silent for a minute until she then states, " I will go get someone to begin the investigation, '' and put me on hold again for about seven minutes. Finally, she returned and stated an investigation was submitted and that a manager would reach out to me within seventy-two hours. 

Since then, no one has reached out to me. A Freedom Mortgage agent ( " Agent 5 '' ) did reach out to my mother though on XX/XX/XXXX. Agent 5 did not speak XXXX, yet she called my mother dispute my providing my cell phone number, requesting I be contacted, and making it clear my mom could not have these conversations in English. My mom refused to talk to the individual after they asked her to share her full social security number over the phone and requested they call me. They did not. So my mom sent me a screenshot of Agent 5 's number and I called them on XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX XXXX  ( EST ). Agent 5 did not answer so I left a voicemail leaving my name and number and requesting a call back. No call back was made. I have received no communication from Freedom Mortgage since then about the investigation. I called them again on XX/XX/XXXX to request information about the investigation and was simply told I would be called back. 

This has taken tremendous amount of time from me and has negatively impacted my car insurance driver score so that over the course this year, I will end up paying over {$1000.00} more for the same insurance I have always had. Freedom Mortgage agents has been seriously unreliable, even if when trying to be helpful, in their information.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation