Consumer complaint received 2016-01-08
Company: TCF NATIONAL BANK
State: MN
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Home equity loan or line of credit
Issue: Loan servicing, payments, escrow account

Complaint:
Starting in about XXXX 2015 I started wondering why my account had not gone down in 10 years. It had only gone down {$800.00} in 9 years. I had made extra payment amounts from the beginning. I made {$450.00} payments for almost 2 years. None of the extra {$40.00} made it to my Principal. ( Attached doc ) They were used just for interest. For many years I was under the impression that this loan was like any other loan - it 's a set amount and it does n't matter when you pay it as long as you are not late. I was making XXXX payments at XXXX time sometimes - little did I know that this loan does n't work that way. You have to make a payment every 30 days on the dot - or you will be charged interest since you were over 30 days. So making payments early and then making double payments actually cost me money because the next payment was not due for 45 days. So I would be charged XXXX more days of interest. I have since figured this out. I also noticed that when I would pay extra that the extra amount would be taken off of my next payment amount. ( EX. XXXX would go down to XXXX ) Eventually my monthly payment would be {$0.00} - and they would say I do n't need to make a payment. So I did n't. What they were doing was taking my extra payment amounts and showing I was prepaying interest. ( They should have gone to reduce principal ) Then if I did n't make the payment they would then charge me another 30 days interest. 
Most of my concern is that I am trying to pay this loan off in 3 years. I want to make big payments to get my principal down. So since XXXX 2015 - I have been working on this and " testing '' the system to make sure payments are being applied correctly. I would make {$500.00} payments and those payments would all go to interest or just be applied wrong. I have attached information so you can see how they posted the payments. You will see that I had to call back and have them re-do the payment allocations - every month - they were applying my extra payments to prepaid interest. I have a script that I have to say to them each time. ( See below ) I talk to someone different every time. They do not apply the payments correctly. And this week they lost XXXX of my extra payments. I made the payment over the phone on XXXX/XXXX/2015 and the lady said it was good to go. I had to use my script near the bottom of this document to make sure she does it right. Many people have said to me " you need to do this exactly. '' And I have done everything they have said. I got an account with them to make sure the payments were coming out on time. I also say exactly what they want me to say. I then have to go into the account the next day to see if they applied the payments correctly. Why am I working so hard to make sure they do this right? Should n't they have this? I was told multiple times from the people on the phone that they have to '' make these changes all day long. These loans are bad and the system can not handle the loans. '' They also told me to do the payments using the new Online Payment application. That system also takes my payments and then prepays the interest. This is not working either. So I went back to calling the loan servicing number. And that is when they screwed up my payment for {$280.00}. It has now been 8 days and that amount is not showing on my loan. They did take the money out of my account - but I have not seen it. They said it went into another account. Not sure if it was my account or someone else 's. I have talked to multiple people and they could not find the {$280.00}. See below the events by day. 
I did involve the XXXX. I am working with XXXXXXXXXXXand he suggested that I contact your office. 
XXXX did get me in contact with a XXXX Retail Lending, XXXXXXXXXXX- See attachments for more info that comes after this.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief