Consumer complaint received 2017-09-14
Company: Seterus, Inc.
State: MD
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
XXXX XXXX, XXXX My monthly mortgage payments are debited by Seterus , Inc. on the third of each month. I do not deviate from the schedule. 
However in XXXX I noticed a shortage in my escrow account and also noticed a slight increase in my taxes which are included in the mortgage payment. On XXXX XXXX, XXXX I forwarded a bank check to Setrus, Inc, marked as an escrow payment, which was at first put into suspense and then misapplied by the mortgage company into the principle account. 
I only know this because I called when I noticed the XXXX statement Dated XXXX XXXX ( statement # XXXX ) did not reflect the XXXX I had paid. The customer service representative issued a request for me to have the XXXX I sent as an extra payment transferred to escrow and explained what had happened. 
So in summary, in XXXX XXXX, I paid Seterus XXXX in funds with XXXX to go into escrow. In XXXX another XXXX to be distributed in the regular manner with no shortage to either Principal, Interest or Escrow. Somehow the company is trying to justify the XXXX shortage in both my Escrow and Principal as something the should be occurring naturally in Accounting. I have been told this twice. 

In XXXX no additional payment was reflected and in XXXX, my regular payment ( statement # XXXX ) shows that the XXXX in funds was moved around and reversed as requested to a XXXX dollar balance and the XXXX was credited to my escrow but taken from my monthly payment. The XXXX regular monthly payment I paid, payment XXXX went into escrow and a balance of XXXX was put into principal. This left a shortage from my payment of ( XXXX ) which is reflected on my statement. The breakdown is below. 

So my question is while the XXXX is reflected in escrow, and I paid extra to have that done, why is my principal balance for XXXX a negative balance. A full payment was sent and the company had the full funds for the transfer without deducting any amount from my regular payment. There should NOT be a negative balance anywhere. 

This should have been an internal transfer from principal to escrow as the funds were NOT a part of any normal payment made. There was never a shortage, although XXXX is reflected currently of XXXX ( the XXXX and my regular principal payment of XXXX ). The current statement should show the following totals as paid since last statement ; Principal- XXXX Interest-XXXX Escrow-XXXX Dates of payment were XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX and all prior payments due to direct withdrawal. 
XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXXescrow payment XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX Please correct this as I intend to send another escrow payment in on XXXX XXXX, XXXX and would like the account to reflect this correctly with out taking XXXX months to reconcile. This is not proper accounting procedure and under both Maryland XXXX XXXX and Federal law XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX SS XXXX, commingling of escrow and principle funds is not permissible and requests in a timely manner has not occurred. 

Please review the documents sent and correct this account as i have called XXXX times and have been told it would be corrected and have seen numbers moved but no credit for the XXXX additional paid. XXXX proof attached ). 
Fix this BEFORE an escrow is run so I can send another payment. Today if possible. 

Sincerely, XXXX XXXX XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation