Consumer complaint received 2018-06-13
Company: Freedom Mortgage Company
State: NC
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account status incorrect

Complaint:
Our mortgage loan is currently being serviced by Freedom Mortgage Company XXXX Freedom ). We are disputing a 30 days past due report that Freedom made to the credit bureaus for XX/XX/XXXX, which appears on our reports, as both incorrect and severely prejudicial to us. We request that this 30 days past due report be deleted immediately. 

In approximately XX/XX/XXXX, our mortgage loan was sold and transferred to Freedom. We began making mortgage payments to Freedom via their online/web payment system in XX/XX/XXXX. For the first payment, in XX/XX/XXXX, we entered our ACH and routing numbers for our bank account and saved that information to our Freedom online account for all future online payments, and made the XXXX payment by clicking submit payment after verifying the account and payment details. In XX/XX/XXXX, and again in XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX, we submitted our monthly mortgage payments through the normal payment process -- we logged into our account via the Freedom website, verified our payment and account details ( the ACH and routing numbers had been saved previously ) and clicked submit payment. Freedom debited the correct amount from our bank account for each of these months and we had no issues with a late payment. 

At XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX, as shown in the attached web browser history, we clicked submit payment after verifying the payment amount and account details as part of the normal online payment process. The next screen was a payment confirmation screen. We did not receive an error message, or any message or communication whatsoever, indicating that the payment did not go through or there was some error with the process. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, we logged in to our Freedom account to submit our XX/XX/XXXXpayment. Upon logging in, we saw that our XX/XX/XXXX payment was showing as past due with a late charge. We immediately paid all outstanding amounts via the online payment system, including the late charge for the purportedly late payment. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, we learned that Freedom had reported to the credit bureaus that our XX/XX/XXXX mortgage payment was submitted over thirty days past due. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, we submitted a written credit reporting dispute request to Freedom and asked that they correct the inaccurate reporting to the credit bureaus. On XX/XX/XXXX, we learned that Freedoms response was that they could not honor our request. During the telephone call on XX/XX/XXXX in which we discussed Freedoms findings from their consideration of our request, the Freedom supervisory employee ( first name and teller ID provided in attachment ) admitted that their records show that we went through the normal payment process and submitted payment on XX/XX/XXXX. The Freedom supervisory employee explained that Freedoms records show the payment was submitted on XX/XX/XXXX because we submitted it after business hours on XX/XX/XXXX. 

This issue has happened to other customers at Freedom, as evidenced by several recent complaints submitted by consumers to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. For example, on XX/XX/XXXX, another Freedom customer submitted a complaint to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau describing the exact same payment and credit reporting issue ( Complaint Number XXXX, see attachment ) -- that he/she submitted payment through Freedoms online payment system, did not receive an error message, and subsequently learned that Freedom had reported him/her as over 30 days past due for that submitted payment to the credit bureaus. 

We timely made our XX/XX/XXXX payment and our loan servicer, Freedom, has admitted the same. Freedom failed to apply this payment as required under our mortgage loan. Thus, Freedoms reporting of a late payment for XX/XX/XXXX is factually incorrect even by their own admission. 

This inaccurate report of a late payment has greatly harmed us. Prior to the inaccurate report, we had a perfect credit history with not a single late payment, including no late mortgage payments across over eight years and multiple loan servicers for our mortgage loan. After Freedoms inaccurate report, our credit scores dropped by close to 100 points and we were denied a loan for a new mortgage as a result of Freedoms actions. We  should not be penalized for Freedoms failure to correctly apply a payment that we timely made in full. 

We request that Freedom immediately delete the inaccurate 30 days late report on our credit reports.

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