Consumer complaint received 2018-03-22
Company: Freedom Mortgage Company
State: SC
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
Freedom Mortgage bought my account from XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX   several months ago and it has been nothing but a debacle since they started servicing the loan. This complaint is specific to how they are setting up bi-weekly auto payments ( not how they keep calling me to refinance even though I've requested no more calls ). Over the last 4 months they have had to reverse and reapply payments 6 times due to their errors and now I can't keep up with what is accurate. A major UDAAP concern because at this point I'm completely lost and so are the agents that I speak with. 

Summary of events : XXXX XXXXXXXX - I set up bi-weekly payments. In order to do this I had to pay my loan ahead by one month which I did. I used the system to set up the bi-weekly payments, but it was very confusing because it does not clearly state what they payment amount will be. I called customer service and they informed me that I have to act as if it is a bi-monthly payment and double the amount of what I actually want coming out bi-weekly ( confusing, right? ). For example, I want to pay exactly {$2000.00} every Monday after I get paid ( bi-weekly ). In order to do this, I have to put in the system that I want my payment amount to be {$4000.00}. In a nutshell, I have to put a monthly amount that will be calculated bi-monthly, but taken out bi-weekly. Confusing, but I was fine with it and the agent was actually very helpful. 

XXXX XXXX - I noticed that my first 'new ' bi-weekly auto-draft was the same amount as the old monthly auto-draft ( should have been {$2000.00}, but it was {$1900.00} ). I then noticed that there was no difference in the breakdown of how principle, interest or escrow were being applied. I called customer service and they explained to me that the first payment of the month should cover the actual payment and then the second or third payment will be principle only. I asked why the first payment didn't take half of the payment amount, apply the rest to principle and then take the second payment to cover the rest. Obviously, any time there is a third payment it should go to principle only. She informed me that I could set it up this way and that it could save interest, but that they would have to put in a ticket and manually set it up. She said that this would have to be a 'special request ' which I found odd, but didn't question it. 

A few days later - I called customer service again because they reversed and replied the payment, but the actual breakdown of what money was applied to principle, interest and escrow was not on the website. I again explained the whole scenario over again and several " tickets '' were put in the system to 'fix ' the issue. 

About a week later - I check my account and notice that payment of roughly {$1400.00} was applied to the account ( I have no earthly idea where this {$1400.00} number came from ). It was broken out into {$970.00} for " Payment '' and {$510.00} for " Principle Payment ''. I called customer service once again and immediately asked for a manager. I was informed that no manager was available to speak to me but that they could send me over to the escalation unit. I spoke with " XXXX '' for about 50 minutes explaining the whole scenario once again clearly articulating that I want {$2000.00} drafted from my account on a bi-weekly basis on the Monday after I get paid. At this point, I actually felt pretty good that the issues were going to be resolved. XXXX put in more tickets and seemed to be helpful. XXXX did confirm that the way the initial bi-weekly auto draft was set up incorrectly. We went over the summary multiple times which was the following : - {$2000.00} to be draft bi-weekly - {$970.00} of that payment will go to the monthly payment ( to cover principle, interest & escrow ) - The additional {$1000.00} will go to principle only Lastly, I was informed that I should go ahead and plan on calling in or checking my account on XX/XX/XXXX which should be a principle only payment. The agent was not confident that the system would allocate funds correctly. 

Today ( XX/XX/18 ) - I go look at my account and I immediately notice two things.

1. The " Principle Payment '' of {$510.00} was reversed and reapplied as " Payment ''.

2. The next draft amount is only {$1000.00}.

In regards to # 1 above, I am completely lost as to what payments I've made have gone to principle vs. interest. I'm highly confident that Freedom Mortgage might be double dipping interest because they already took out the full monthly interest earlier in the month and now they are taking out more interest ( I'm assuming they are taking more interest since it is " Payment '' instead of " Principle '' being applied and i can't see a breakdown of what amount is being applied to where ). 
In regards to # 2 above, I'm fairly confident that Freedom associates are setting up auto bi-weekly payments of {$2000.00} as I have requested. However, their servicing system breaks that in half ( as explained above ).

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