Consumer complaint received 2023-02-19
Company: Freedom Mortgage Company
State: VA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: VA mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
I purchased my home with Freedom mortgage in XXXX of XXXX and as a 100 % XXXX XXXX  living in Virginia I do NOT have to pay taxes on my house. 

When XXXX, which is the escrow/tax recovery company Freedom mortgage uses XXXX pulled my tax statements from XXXX XXXX they would NOT except my tax statement of XXXX $ which I am granted. 

So XXXX illegally pulled the prior years records that were of the former owner and used those against me. 

This is identity theft of the former owner. 
And federal fraud against me as I am NOT the former owner and have different taxes, tax rates and discounts. 

These are not blanket statements, but fact, as legal statutes are in place to prohibit companies from doing this. 

I informed Freedom mortgage of the error in XXXX of XXXX and by XXXX had both Freedom mortgage and XXXX  on the phone understanding what they did and promising to fix it. 

I requested an audit of the account and was told it would take place. I have never received the results of any audit. 

I was told to contact my county and pull the tax statements to help. 
I reminded them of the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX as I am 100 % XXXX and would need help doing this, they didn't care and would not help. 
My county are the ones who informed me of how XXXX broke the law and pulled the former owners tax statements. 

Then to make matters worse Freedom mortgage didn't actually pay part of my taxes and blamed the county, just as the county was informing me of the non payment. 
This may be confusing but by law as a 100 % XXXX XXXX  with a XXXX  loan it is Freedom mortgage 's responsibility to handle my taxes, not the XXXX  's responsibility. 

Not only did they NOT fix it but inflated my escrow to accommodate the new tax information that was fraudulent and only months later paying the late tax bill. 

This added {$300.00} a month and for the next 18 months continued to bill me and hurt me no matter what I told them. 

In XXXX of XXXX I finally got someone on the phone that seemed to understand the situation and received again promises of fixing and refunds before XXXX XXXX. 

This again was a lie and nothing was done. 

Then a check for the last 6 months refund came in, however nothing for the prior year. 

When contacted Freedom mortgage stated they couldn't send me a check for the remaining tax refund and could only refund into the escrow. This is a blatant lie as we had received the prior refund check AND it is against federal law to hold more than {$500.00} dollars in overages in escrow and those overages must be refunded to home owner. 

Freedom mortgage then blamed the county treasurer for not sending them back the overages. Another lie as the county did but to an address XXXX gave them that they now " claimed was no longer in use ''. 

The county treasurer when asked at ANY time during the 18 months for the refund said it was illegal for them to give it to me that Freedom mortgage had to. 

Freedom mortgage agreed with this fact but said they were always waiting on the monies from the county to be given back to them after they over paid the taxes from the escrow. 

Another lie as the county had proof of checks sent, not once but twice. 
Freedom mortgage refused to address the situation at the start of XXXX and refused to work with the buyer in sorting this out even though the buyer is who had the documentation, tax papers, and all other proof of incident. 

On XXXX XXXX XXXX the checks were refunded by the county treasurer under instruction of Freedom mortgage against federal law. 
As I can only access this was so Freedom mortgage didn't have to contact me or deal with me. 

No formal apology for 18 months of XXXX, no apology for the fact that the XXXX dollars per month stolen from the veteran was their food money for the month. 


Freedom mortgage customer service refused to help, the tax department refused to help, XXXX refused to help. 

When they finally agreed to help after threats of publishing what they had done and proving what they had done they said to always ask for a supervisor when calling in BUT XXXX  me be lower customer service never allowing me to talk to the supervisor. 

Now I have new bill for UNPAID taxes received this first week of XX/XX/XXXX which Freedom mortgage refuses to address. 
As stated earlier I am a 100 % XXXX XXXX  and am not supposed to receive tax bills as it is Freedom mortgage 's and then XXXX  responsibility to pay these taxes and receive these statements.

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