Consumer complaint received 2022-04-28
Company: SANTANDER BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: MA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
Timeline of XXXX XXXX with Santander In the past 4 or 5 years, Santander has repeatedly raised the price of escrow withdrawals from our mortgage due to the fact that they require that we have a running balance of {$3000.00} in our escrow account. They never realize or agree that at some point, the insurance payment and one quarterly tax payment they make from our escrow account occur at the same time. After dealing with this for a number of years, we finally called them in XXXX and XXXX of XXXX to ask them to release us from the escrow requirement. However, it is impossible to talk to someone in the Escrow Department we were not allowed to do so. We had to talk to someone in the mortgage department, who would then refer our problem over to the Escrow Dept. We had talked to them about this previously in XXXX. They required a 0.25 % of our outstanding mortgage balance as a fee to waive the escrow portion of our monthly payment and to release this money in our account to us. We argued against paying this fee because this was our money. We were told that this was part of our contract. We never had a contract with Santander we refinanced in XXXX of XXXX with another lender, who then sold our mortgage to Santander. There is no copy in our mortgage documents from the previous Lender about charging a fee to waive our escrow payment. Finally, in XXXX of XXXX, after getting another notice of an escrow shortage, we decided to just pay this fee to get us out of this nonsense. 
On or about XX/XX/XXXX, we sent a payment of {$190.00}, the fee required to release our escrow monies, to the correct address, attention of Escrow Department. However, we discovered through our mortgage statement of XX/XX/XXXX that Santander posted this {$190.00} payment to our mortgage and not as the stated fee. We called Santander to notify them of this mistake ; of course, because we are not allowed to speak to anyone in the Escrow Dept, we again had to go through the mortgage department. Per statement of XX/XX/XXXX, Santander transferred this money to the escrow account as a payment to escrow, not as the waiver fee. ( see copy of letter attached, explaining this ). They then charged us {$.00} interest for withdrawing the {$190.00} from our Principal. 
After months of getting nowhere, on XX/XX/XXXX I went to XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX. XXXX XXXX at Santander Bank in XXXX, XXXX, for help. He called Santander Bank and explained the situation. The agent told him that since we had argued against paying a fee to have our own money released to us, they cancelled the whole transaction back in XXXX and placed the {$190.00} to our Principal and not Escrow. ( They never notified us of this. ) They told XXXX XXXX they needed a letter in writing from us to confirm the whole transaction ( see same copy of letter attached ). The next day, XX/XX/XXXX, I went to see XXXX XXXX and handed him the attached letter. He immediately scanned it and sent it to the appropriate agent at Santander. 
Our XX/XX/XXXX statement stated that on XX/XX/XXXX the {$190.00} was applied as Client Miscellaneous Fee. 
Many phone calls and emails were sent between XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX in the next 6 months. 
On XX/XX/XXXX we received a letter from Santander that an escrow waiver fee of {$170.00} was required to waive the escrow fee. Copy attached. I immediately scanned it and sent it to XXXX XXXX. Another round of emails ensued. Copies attached. See copy of our XX/XX/XXXX statement. Santander withdrew that {$170.00} out of our XXXX mortgage payment and applied it ( AGAIN ) as the fee to release the escrow. They have now charged us the waiver fee twice : 1 ) {$190.00} and 2 ) {$170.00}.

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