Consumer complaint received 2018-08-22
Company: FIFTH THIRD FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: MA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
We received an annual escrow account statement in the mail. I opened it to find out that my mortgage was going to increase {$520.00} per month if I did not pay my bank {$3500.00} that they said I owed to my escrow account. If I paid the {$3500.00} then it would still increase by {$220.00} per month. I immediately thought that this was an error so I contacted my mortgage advisor to discuss the situation. After reviewing with him and with my wife who used to work in an accounting firm, we found the cause of the problem. There were actually 2 problems. One was that the bank had projected us to have two hazard insurance payments next year. The other was that we were projected to pay tax to a town that we did not live in. Some how when projecting our tax payments someone inputted our tax payments as being owed to the town of XXXX, MA. I live in XXXX, MA and do not owe taxes to the town of XXXX. Even the projected amounts have shown to not be paid. The problem here lies in the fact that I have paid the town of XXXX their 4 quarterly tax payments throughout XXXX and XXXX for the year in question, but we had one payment projected to the town of XXXX in XX/XX/2018. This is where we have an issue. The bank is not only projecting that we will owe 5 quarterly payments next year, but they also are deducting {$1200.00} from escrow account based on a projected payment to a town that I don't live in. This statement was created and in early XXXX and they used projected amounts to deduct from our escrow balance as well as project future escrow payments. So now we are being deducted an extra {$1200.00} from city tax to a town that we do not live in, being projected to pay an extra quarterly tax payment next year ( that would be 5 quarterly tax payments ), and being projected to make an extra hazard insurance payment next year. After calling multiple people in many different departments who could not see all of my information in front of them at one time, I was finally forwarded to XXXX. She is a supervisor in the mortgage department at my bank. She took very detailed notes because, she too, could not have access to all of my information. She was planning to take this information to review to have my escrow adjusted to reflect the correct deductions and payments. She repeated everything back to me and it sounded like she understood what I was saying. I have no doubt that XXXX understood what the complaint was and what needed to be done to rectify the situation. I received a statement in the mail in the meantime that reflected our new payment of {$3100.00}. On this statement at this time on XX/XX/XXXX my Account Information reflected that we had an escrow balance of - {$150.00} ( that would be a negative balance ). 
A couple of weeks passed and XXXX and I had played phone tag for a little bit before a man named XXXX contacted me. I was heading into a meeting with clients and asked him to just give me quick details of what was determined. He stated that our escrow account had been reviewed and they determined we were - {$1800.00} in our escrow account and if we did not pay that amount up front that our new payment would be {$2900.00} per month and if we paid it in full that our payment would be {$2700.00} per month. I told him that I had questions because the negative amount did not sound correct due to what we previously had discussed with other agents and what was reflected on our bill. He called me back today theXX/XX/XXXX and tried to review the statement with me. He gave me the link to see the new escrow statement and its projections. The town of XXXX is still on our current year statement as a projected tax payment for the amount of {$1200.00}. It did not appear to be in next year 's projected payments, but is definitely being deducted from our escrow account to reflect that we owe more to our escrow account than should be. The extra hazard insurance payment had been removed, but the town of XXXX was still in my statement. I tried to convey this to XXXX, but he continued to interrupt me and talk over me to try and close this issue. He told me that the town of XXXX was not being taken into consideration even though it was reflected on the legal account spreadsheet that was made available to me through the website. I tried to run through the math with him, just on the spreadsheet that was provided for this year 's escrow statement. He continued to jump around and try to say that payments that we made into escrow for the month of XXXX couldn't be taken into consideration because another payment came out first. The conversation became heated and I asked to be transferred to his supervisor. He said that he is the supervisor. I asked him to transfer me to his boss, at which point he stated that he is the boss. There was a lot of confusion going on at that point which I did not take personal, but when he told me that there was no one to transfer me to cause he was the top person there, I knew that he was going to be an issue. At this point I asked him to transfer me to his boss, that I know he has a boss, or I would be taking this complaint to the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau. I have been on numerous phone calls with numerous people, making sure that my  previous insurance was cancelled, making sure that my address was logged correctly, and verifying my address information with multiple people. I have jumped through all of the hoops that they asked me to jump through, and spent valuable time out of my day and away from work to get this situation cleared up. I had no problem with dealing with the bank until I was sarcastically told that there was no one higher than XXXX. I just need this town tax issue cleared up and I think that my problem will be corrected. I will attach all documentation that I have from the older escrow statement, my last mortgage statement, and my revised escrow statement.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation