Consumer complaint received 2017-11-27
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: CO
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
Bank of America took my payment for XX/XX/XXXX and misappropriated it to a principal payment instead of a monthly payment. They claim I can not pay my mortgage in advance however refuse to supply any information to me that indicates I am not allowed to prepay my mortgage. I have asked for this for over a month. Their customer service staff does not return my calls even after being transferred to a supervisor or having the complaint 'escalated '. My mortgage does not have a prepayment penalty. BofA asked me to email them a request to be allowed to pay my mortgage in advance. While this is outside the scope of my executed mortgage documentation, I have done this. I sent an email on XX/XX/XXXX to XXXX after  he asked me to. He said he would have me added to the 'pay-in-advance ' list and move the payment I made back to the XX/XX/XXXX payment. He did nothing with this. Again on XX/XX/XXXX I called and was told they needed a signature. I resent the email, this time to XXXX and included a signature. He did nothing with this. On XX/XX/XXXX I  called and was told they required a " WET '' signature via fax or postal mail. I explained that a fax is not a WET signature and they agreed but also stated they could not use an email signature. I asked once again to forward information to me that shows that I am NOT allowed to prepay my mortgage. XXXX said she would have someone send this to me in the next 24 hours. It never arrived. I asked for something in writing from BofA that I signed allowing them to change my payments from the monthly payment to a miscellaneous posting and that they can do this without informing me. It has n't arrived. I asked once again to be added to the 'pay-in-advance ' list that BofA has required I request to be added to. I was told they would assist me with the email signature and also gave me an address to send in an additional request via postal mail. I was told I would receive a call back in five minutes. After I hung up, I sent in the request via postal mail. I did finally receive the return call that was to be five minutes later - after more than two weeks. When she called, on XX/XX/XXXX,  she told me again I can not email the request. I asked 'what about the postal mailing? '. She said she had no record of it. We went round and round about why I ca n't send an email with a signature but a fax will do? I told her I could drive to the post office and pay for them to fax her the email and get reimbursed from BofA for my costs, would that work? She put me on hold and then came back and asked me to email her the request again, with the signature. She next said they would work on it and call me back. I declined to be put on hold again and told her I would wait until this was worked out. I asked again for documentation that shows that BofA has the right to penalize me for making a prepayment, what I signed that said I could n't pay early ( my loan is supposed to have no prepayment penalty and requiring I jump through all these hoops IS a penalty ). I asked for documentation in writing that states that BofA has the right to change a payment made and apply it differently than I intended and then NOT notify me of this change. Had I not known, I might have missed the XX/XX/XXXX payment I believed I made all-the-while BofA moved it out of the XX/XX/XXXX payment and into something else. She said she would escalate that but would need to call me back regarding the pay-in-advance list issue. I declined to be called back and said I wanted to hold. She put her manager on the line " XXXX XXXX '' who said they could keep me on hold for up to five hours. I agreed to hold even if it took that long. After about 10 minutes, she came back and told me I was added to the 'pay-in-advance ' list and they re-applied my XX/XX/XXXX payment back to the XX/XX/XXXX payment instead of where they misappropriated it. She asked if she could do anything else for me? I told her yes, I want to know, in writing, where I signed something giving BofA the right to move my payments at their discretion and where I have signed something giving them the ability to penalize me for paying early. I have not received anything on this and am not satisfied that BofA did n't do something illegal. If big banks can mess with our monthly payments, apply them to some other place and NOT notify the customer that this change was made, then how are we, as customers, to know that they wo n't do this so they can then add a late fee or in turn, file foreclosure papers due to lack of payment - all-the-while after the customer believes they have made a payment, on the BofA website.

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 monetary relief