Consumer complaint received 2018-02-14
Company: REGIONS FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: FL
Product: Payday loan, title loan, or personal loan
Sub-product: Installment loan
Issue: Charged fees or interest you didn't expect

Complaint:
I received a SBA sponsored loan from Regions Bank in XXXX. The original amount was {$210000.00}. In XXXX I requested a loan payoff since the loan was attached to my home. I was selling my home and I needed to payoff the commercial loan. Once I received the payoff, Regions placed {$6700.00} in forced insurance premiums on the loan. I had this loan for 10 years and I had insurance the entire time during this time. I was not notified of the forced insurance. It did not show up on my loan, my monthly statement, my online account or any other bank item to even know that this existed. I was not mailed anything. I was not sent insurance policies or any other insurance information. I have never been provided the polices to review or even if they existed. 


When I inquired about getting it removed, I was instructed to email the proof of insurance to a email XXXX. 

They originally asked for business liability proof of insurance. I sent it. They then asked flood insurance. I told them I was not required to have flood insurance from my landlord. They then asked for business content proof of insurance. I sent that as well. I felt like they were making up things for me to get them until I could no longer produce the documents. 

I sent all of the documents. I thought this would be a pretty easy process since I had insurance the entire 10 years. They then stated that the polices I sent them were not worded or titled correctly and they were not going to remove the {$6700.00} in forced insurance. From my research it looks like they applied forced insurance during years XX/XX/XXXX,XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX but not in XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX or in years XX/XX/XXXX-XX/XX/XXXX. 

Regions Bank has refused to refund my money. They stated that the policies were not correctly titled to their liking. The insurance policies in XX/XX/XXXX-XX/XX/XXXX were no different than the polices from XX/XX/XXXX-XX/XX/XXXX.  This is clearly an attempt to stall, delay, find technicalities or some other reason not to refund my money. 

This practice of creating fake insurance and then failing to notify the loan holder should be illegal and is basically extortion. I could not close of the sale of my home until it was paid. I pushed the closing back 4 times in order to give Regions time to make this right. They refused and I was forced to pay off the {$67000.00} in illegally obtained forced insurance out of the sale proceeds from my home. 

I have two major issues with this situation. First, I was not notified fo the forced insurance. It did not show up on statements, online documents, monthly payments or any other item from the bank. They put this fee on my loan for three years ( then stopped the insurance ) without my knowledge. 

Secondly, when I provided them proof of insurance, they asked for the insurance to be in at least 5 different formats. They asked for three different types of insurance and the policies to read in 3 different ways. I would like to see the policies they claim to have gotten on my behalf and I assure you they dont have the three types they made me provide ( which I did ). 

I appreciate you helping me resolve this situation of a consumer being extorted by a XXXX dollar bank. 

Thanks! 

XXXX XXXX

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