Consumer complaint received 2018-05-04
Company: PHH Mortgage Services Corporation
State: MI
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
Since I started the mortgage 10 years ago this is the only payment that has ever gone 30 days. I attempted to make the payment but PHH has a website which is not optimized and the word Authorization : listed during the online payment process is misleading. It says, you are authorizing a payment after entering the payment amount and hitting submit implying that the payment has been authorized. This wording and processes is misleading and should be changed. Also, the employees doing collections are likely lying about doing their job contacting customers who have missed a payment. The misleading website and poor customer service is responsible for my missed payment in XX/XX/XXXX. I would like the XX/XX/XXXX derogatory record retracted to be current. 

In summary : I have a Mortgage with PH Mortgage company that I have had for over 10 years and have never missed a payment on that account or any account in my entire credit history ( document 7 my credit report ) until XX/XX/XXXX. In summary, I attempted to make a payment through the PHH Mortgage online website. The payment was never officially sent and therefore never received, as a result I have derogatory record of 30 days late on my credit report that I would like to be retracted to show as current, see page 12 of document 7 to view the record. The details are in the paragraphs below. 

I attempted to make the payment On XX/XX/XXXX I attempted to make a payment thought the PHH website Mortgagequestions.com. I have attached supporting document 1 showing that the payment was all set to be made and I took a screen shot, of what I thought was confirmation of the payment. The screen shot of my payment shows the word Authorization which could be easily mistaken for authorized. Further proving both my intent and attempt to make the payment I have attached document 5 showing that I transferred {$680.00}, the amount of my payment, to my checking account XXXX, document 1 also shows that account XXXX is the account I intended for the money to come from. Unfortunately, due to the Authorization header on the payment page I missed that I had to click the make payment button on the PHH website. Document 8b pg2 shows there was {$7100.00} in account XXXX which is more than enough to cover the payment of {$680.00} had it been posted. I was not aware, however, that the payment had not been posted and I filed my screenshot with the rest of my payment records and went on with my life. 

I was never made aware the payment was not posted I was never contacted by PHH about a missed payment by phone or by mail. Never. According to a customer service representative at PHH mortgage, their collection records show they called me on XX/XX/XXXX but I never received a call. I NEVER was contacted by anyone at PHH. I am a mother and a small business owner and ALWAYS answer my phone. I ALWAYS answer my phone and would have been happy to bring the account up to date given the chance. I tried to obtain a list of my phone records proving they never called me so I could submit them with this complaint. Unfortunately, XXXX XXXX XXXX, my cellular provider, was unable to deliver that information because the billing has mobile phone and landline on the same bill which XXXX XXXX XXXX calls combined billing and as a result XXXX XXXX XXXX has no way to access the call history from my mobile device. Despite my strong attempts to obtain my phone records to prove the alleged call date of XX/XX/XXXX never took place. XXXX XXXX XXXX is unable to provide me anything in writing. If CFPB is so inclined they can call XXXX XXXX XXXX to confirm that business accounts with combined billing are unable to access the records from their mobile device. If CFPB could access my phone records it would show that PHH Mortgage never called me or left a voice message. I had a job related to collections years ago and what I think may have happened is that a collections employee clicked through their collection calls generating documentation that they called me but they never actually called. I encourage the CFPB to request call logs from PHHs phone provider proving that the call was placed and show the duration of the alleged call. There was no call to me alerting me that my payment had not been made, there was no email or standard mail sent to me by PHH alerting me that my payment was not made. I never received any contact from PHH that my payment was not made. 
If I had been made aware that the payment had been missed of course I would have paid it immediately. Why after 20 years of perfect payment history, as shown in a copy of my credit report ( document 7 ), and a credit score of XXXX ( document 6 ), with plenty of cash in the bank, would I let a payment of {$680.00} ruin everything I have worked so hard for. I understand the value of my credit score which is why I monitor it and mange it responsibly. Every attempt was made by me to make my payment on time and if I had been made aware of any delinquency I would have remedied it immediately. 

I paid immediately after finding out the payment had not been made My husband and I both have been subscribed to a monthly subscription with the credit monitoring service offered by XXXX as shown in document 9 for over 5 years. On XX/XX/XXXX, I received a preliminary alert message from XXXX on my phone stating there may be a potentially negative or derogatory record on my PHH account. I immediately went to the PHH online website to investigate and made a payment as shown in supporting document 2. Supporting document 3 shows the alert being officially posted to my XXXX  credit monitoring service on XX/XX/XXXX. I was only made aware of the derogatory record when I received an alert form my own credit reporting monitoring service that I pay for monthly PHH never informed me. As soon as I was made aware of the missed payment I immediately went online to make the payment. I went to the same website 2 days later to make another payment and I went online again a few days after that to make yet another payment bringing my account paid a month in advance. I would have made all 3 payments on the same day but I did not trust their website would properly apply multiple payments on the same day. The PHH website has a history of low function. Supporting document 4 shows the message on the website when I log in saying the website is not optimized. I receive this message every time I log in no matter which browser I try. 
As soon as I found out about the late payment I made the account current. As shown in document 2 the payment happened within the same day of me being made aware that it was late. I called the company PHH Mortgage to see what happened. Of course, I though the payment had been made and was under the impression there was some mistake on their part. That is when the claimed they tried to call me, and since the payment never left my bank they recommended I issue a written complaint to the CFPB. 
However, there is responsibility of the company PHH Mortgage to reach out to me via email, phone and/or mail to let me know of a missed payment. With such an important result as a derogatory record affecting my credit both personally and in business I would hope the CFPB will find the fault does not lie with me and retract the XX/XX/XXXX derogatory record. 
I want the XX/XX/XXXX derogatory record retracted to be current - Document 1 shows the word Authorization which appears after I type in all my payment information, implying the payment has been made - I have a proven history of having a credit score of XXXX prior to this event as shown in document 6, my credit dropped to XXXX within days of this event. Document 8 shows plenty of cash to cover the payment and documents 1,3 and 9 show I understand the importance of making payments on time - I have a history of always current payments on this account ( document 7-m pg 12 ) and all of my accounts from the beginning of my credit reporting history ( document 7 ). 
- I have never been late on any payment ever. ( document 7 ) - Never in the history of my credit reporting has anything like this ever occurred. ( document 7 ) - I pay monthly to protect my credit ( document 9 ) and would never have allowed a missed payment had I known of it - I paid immediately after finding out the payment had not been made ( document 2 ) Since I started the mortgage 10 years ago this is the only payment that has ever gone 30 days. I attempted to make the payment but PHH has a website which is not optimized and the word Authorization : listed during the online payment process is misleading. It says, you are authorizing a payment after I had already entered the payment amount and hit submit implying that the payment has been authorized. This wording and processes is misleading and should be changed. Also, the employees doing collections are likely lying about doing their job contacting customers who have missed a payment. The misleading website and poor customer service is responsible for my missed payment in XX/XX/XXXX. I would like the XX/XX/XXXX derogatory record retracted to be current.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation