Consumer complaint received 2021-12-07
Company: Freedom Mortgage Company
State: OR
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: FHA mortgage
Issue: Struggling to pay mortgage

Complaint:
At the beginning of XXXX I realized I was going to miss my mortgage payment for the month so I called Freedom Mortgage to notify them of what was going on. I wanted to get ahead of this. The first call was on XX/XX/2021. 

I called a few weeks later to see what was happening because I had received no communication from them and I became concerned about late fees and it being reported to the credit bureau and I was told that since they we working with me that my account would not negatively affected. 

On XX/XX/2021 I emailed the loss mitigation department a letter explaining my hardship and attached the paperwork to back it up. I also sent pay-stubs and an electronically signed copy of my tax returns. I received no response from them. On this day I also made a {$1600.00} payment. {$170.00} was rolled forward into " suspense '' to be applied to my next payment. 

On XX/XX/2021 I called again to see what was happening and it was at that time that I was notified that my email was received but the attachments were not. They had my response for 12 days and never let me know I was missing items. That evening I sent a new email with the documents needed attached. I also printed out, signed, and faxed my tax returns so that I could not be used as an excuse. I still never received a return call. 

On XX/XX/2021 I made another payment of {$1200.00}. 

I called again on approximately XX/XX/2021 because I noticed I had accrued late fees despite the fact that I was told that since I was actively working to get caught up, I would not be charged any. I also let him know that I would be completely caught up by midXXXX. He did reverse all of my late fees. 

On XX/XX/2021 I made a payment of {$1300.00}, which got me completely up to date. I was essentially only late with one payment, in XXXX. 

Soon after I got a notification that my credit score had changed and when I looked at it I realized that Freedom Mortgage decided to report my payments as late. I had been consistently working with them the entire time and it felt like they did everything in their power to NOT let me get into the hardship program. 

On approximately XX/XX/2021 I called again about trying to refinance out of my PMI since my payments were caught up and my equity was high enough. I was told that my credit score would be too low to get a new loan approved. When I told him about what had happened over the last few months and how they had already agreed to reverse the late fees. He said that they realized they must have realized they had done something wrong. Later he emailed me to say that as of XX/XX/2021 they were still requesting information to qualify for hardship, despite the fact that I had completely caught up two weeks prior and no longer needed assistance. He then told me that he could not help me anymore. 

On XX/XX/2021 I called Freedom Mortgage again to see if I could get the late payment credit reports reversed. She told me that I was absolutely right and that my account should have been flagged that way it wouldn't have extra fees assessed. She also told me that she had spoken to her supervisor who agreed with her in regards to reporting to the credit bureau. She then told me that the review department had a deadline on XX/XX/2021 to make a decision as to whether or not they would remove late payments they reported. XX/XX/XXXX was a Saturday so I decided to wait until the next business day to see if they would call me. They did not. 

On XX/XX/2021 I called to check on the status of the credit review and this woman told me that there was very detailed notes from the previous agent that spoke with me but it was never submitted for review. After she put me on a very long hold she got back on and said that since I was never in forbearance, that they had the right to file a late payment to the credit bureau twice. She said someone should have offered me a 180 day time-span to " get back on my feet '' but no one ever offered that to me. She then said that she would submit this for review again and that they have 5 days to make their decision and get back to me. 

I have been working on this consistently for the past 4 months despite the fact that I have been current with my payments for 1.5 months. It is like they are intentionally trying to NOT help me. I am finally fed up. I just want those two late payments removed from my credit report so that I can get my score back to normal.

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