Consumer complaint received 2020-07-23
Company: Freedom Mortgage Company
State: NY
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: FHA mortgage
Issue: Closing on a mortgage

Complaint:
My wife and I have been trying to refinance our FHA since XXXX of 2020, during the course of the last several months we have been passed along to various members of the Freedom Mortgage staff, many of whom have provided conflicting or erroneous information. We have previously filed a complaint with the New York State Department of Financial Services. We have reason to believe that we are being discriminated against. Each time we speak with a representative from Freedom, we are told that we will need a larger amount of money to close the loan, upwards of {$10000.00} when we were originally told that we would likely only pay taxes if the loan date was extended. We have requested on several occasions to speak to management, but the staff refuses to allow us to speak to management. Over the course of the last two days ( two and a half months into the loan process ), we were told that our application had to be re-started and that it would take another several weeks to do so. This information came from the " Operations '' department, once we reached back out to the Customer Service Department, we were told that they did not know why the loan had proceeded so far because it was incomplete. Customer Service told us via email that they would " cover all costs '' asssumingly due to the bad experience we've had ; however, this morning we received in the mail, closing documents with a return envelopment. I immediately emailed customer service and copied in the operations contact and asked about the closing documents, but no one responded. I then followed up with a late day phone call and was told that they weren't sure who sent the documents and why they were sent. I requested to speak to management to escalate the issue but was told that there was " no one available. '' I requested the email and contact details of the CEO. The Freedom Mortgage representative became irate and refused to provide me with the contact details until I assisted again. Right now we have a full closing packet with no explanation of whether or not they are valid or if they relate to the old loan or the new loan they said they needed to start. We are very nervous and afraid that we have no one to talk to. The reason we decided to refinance is because our taxes have increased and the mortgage is not unmanageable. Also, we had originally requested to take a HELOC, but Freedom Mortgage told us that they did not have the staff to handle the application and advised us to go with a refinance, which we obviously did. On numerous occasions we have received late night emails stating that staff working on our loan had left the office and were unable to work on our loan due to personal matters and sickness. Most recently, we were told someone left the office with a XXXX XXXX  and on another occasion were told that a family member was dealing with XXXX XXXX XXXX. We have received several empty promises. There appears to be no escalation process at Freedom Mortgage. The staff at Freedom Mortgage has been very inconsiderate and unapologetic. My wife and I are very concerned at this point. We do not know the status of our loan and we fear that we will be retaliated against for making several complaints. We vocalized our frustrated over the phone and asked that our complaints be logged. We need help from the CFPB and guidance around where we can go. At this point we no longer feel comfortable conducting business with Freedom Mortgage. We are desperately seeking help and guidance from the CFPB as we understand Freedom Mortgage has faced discrimination claims in the passed and has also recently settled a claim of discrimination around their practices.

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