Consumer complaint received 2020-12-07
Company: Specialized Loan Servicing Holdings LLC
State: TX
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX I paid my property taxes to the two entities I have each year being a homeowner in XXXX Texas. I've used the same process most of the 20 years I've been a homeowner at my current address. I have not been late with my property taxes nor have I been late with my mortgage payment at any point in time during the 14 years I have been paying my payments through SLS/specialized loan servicing. Each year I call in I give my credit card number I pay a payment for one taxing entity I get a confirmation number and I hang up. I call back give the credit card number payment for the other taxing entity get a confirmation number and hang up I also incur two separate fees for using my credit card two times. Let 's fast forward all the way to the last week in XXXX of XXXX which in Texas was the first week of the covid-19 pandemic shelter in place order given by our governor and when our entire city shut down, most especially the state and county governmental agencies. 
It was also during this week that I opened a piece of mail that had come with no sender 's name in the window and the only thing of note was on the envelope it said important tax information. On the very same day I received a formal looking letter from XXXX county appraisal district it too said '' important tax information " on the front. 
The difference was one looked professional the logos all look like the ones had seen year in and year out the envelopes look the same the ankle look the same I knew that I knew that I knew that it was from the XXXX county appraisal district the other one just looked like a XXXX copy of something another advertisement but I opened it anyway a few days later and surprised to see a three-page letter supposedly from my mortgage servicing company SLS who I had had no major dealings with except to update my contact information into setup auto pay for my mortgage payment. Everything that I'd ever come from them had come from XXXX Colorado and every time I call this customer service number it went to XXXX  Colorado. Now mind you after 16 years you know the logos and they identifying marks of certain companies you've dealt with for a long time and this did not look like any of those there was no sender 's logo or name in the window of the envelope and the city and state fof there location was not in Colorado but in Texas. Everything about this letter, the more I inspected it looked fake. It looked like a XXXX copy of something someone was trying to make look like came from my mortgageservice company and all this right about the time that scams amped up. I nature I'm not a suspicious person but this thing had red lights flashing everywhere. I went on to read it and it was supposedly from my mortgage servicing provider and said that I was delinquent paying the XXXX county property tax for XXXX and to send proof to a fax number or an email address or send proof in an envelope they provided. What made me further suspicious at this juncture was the fact that the email address looked nothing like anything I've ever seen or communicated through with SLS but was an address with a name beginning with XXXX etc. The same with who I was to return the envelope too. Nothing in the instruments I was to return proof too d-noted the recipient being my actual servicing company SLS. What makes matters worse is the original said " do not call " only send proof but further down it said but if you have to call call this number which of course I did and entered into a voicemail prompt XXXX as they were already shut down and this was during the transitory. When no one had started working from home and all I got was a rotation of voicemails and props that led back to one thing send proof to the email address the fax machine or the address which they were providing. Now I'm flipping out at this point I've never been late with my commitments and responsibilities and here it was the first week of a pandemic shelter in place where no one was answering their phones. What I did was type out a letter after having retrieved the confirmation numbers for the property taxes I had paid XX/XX/XXXX telling whoever it was who would be receiving this email that I was not comfortable sending them copies of my credit card statements or a canceled check due to the fact that I could not confirm that it was not a scam and they were actually my servicing loan company and explaining why. the reasons I explained to you up above. I did give them the dates I paid the taxing entities and the independent confirmation numbers and asked them to please please call me. I never got a response from that email but I did pursue this with everything I had including phone calls on many, many occasions to any and all phone numbers I could find that I could possibly Link in anyway to my servicing company. Spending a day being driven to two tax offices in XXXX when their website said they were open only to find upon arrival they were not. I continued to pay my mortgage payments and continued to receive my statements from the servicing company and none of them reflected anything out of the ordinary. the figures were the same as they have been every month and none of them showed my property taxes were delinquent .That did not change until XXXX or XXXX. And then they really got negligent.To recap : except for one letter I received the last week in XXXX from a company I never heard of, from XXXX until the end of XXXX /XXXX I never heard a word from the property tax office saying I was delinquent and by late/XXXX early XXXX the letter I did receive from my service company was two weeks after the action was taken when they jumped the gun and paid a back tax I had never received word from the taxing office I owed then telling me of their intent to file a real estate lien. 
Here 's where it becomes XXXX  in nature. In the mail the very next day I got a delinquent tax notice from the XXXX county tax office for the tax my servicing company had paid but before either had arrived I had emailed the tax office myself as to the status of my XXXX property tax and gotten a reply. It said we appreciate your patience and we are so sorry to be getting back to you this late but we show that you owe no property taxes for XXXX. Now I'm really confused. I'm looking at three documents two from the XXXX county property tax office and one from my mortgage service ompany and and nothing matches then let 's add in the monthly statements with conflicting financial information within the same institutioni.Now I'm scared. These people could not have cared less that we were in the middle of a pandemic that they were working from home from computers that weren't synced to receive the proper information to access when needed to complete transactions or give appropriate timely information of which I could make an educated informed decision and take the appropriate action all at a time when the mail was running late and where neither of the two institutions they were making my life an emotional and mental health leading to physical problems attempted to reach out to me in any other form or fashion then the the United Statesn postal service and nothing certified. My servicing company had all my contact information up to date including my phone number and definitely my email as I had just recently made sure they had the correct information when obtaining a loan balance. I have paid on this property for 20 years I was proud of that. My credit was perfect. It is not any longer .None of that mattered or was taken into consideration when after 6 months had lapsed and they came at me from every end. At one point a mortgage banker associate trying his best to help, and I, attempted to conference call the first day was received with three consecutive voicemail mazes which at the end produced a voicemail saying that all their employees were bus and to call back later. Onmany occasions you go through voicemail prompts and then the phone would disconnect. We made it through to the tax office once I was to get documentation and call him back and they would put me through to escrow because in between the demand for a property tax payment that had already been paid by the same company asking for proof they had placed me into a forced escrow and the nightmare became XXXX  in nature cuz the following month where I'd only authorize them to Auto draft a {$390.00} in change payment ( the same one and same amount I had paid every month for 14 years ) they hit my account and drafted {$740.00} or {$760.00} and some change. The amount of the monthly mortgage payment I had made for 14 years. Everything had changed completely and so once again I pick up the phone and call SLS but by now people are answering. The first two occasions I was sent straight to customer service after lengthy waits each time having to repeat independently the entire sequence of events because none of this is on a synced up computer for viewing from one department to another as it relates to my account and any activity or correspondences.Both times I had a glimmer of hope when a supervisor was being called in and both times that hope was dashed when each call disconnected while I was waiting for the supervisor. 
During this entire time I have paid my timely monthly mortgage payments but now I'm having the bank send it directly to the mortgage company for the amount of the principal and interest including a memo stating that the XXXX and change I was sending was to be applied towards the principal and interest on my loan number and nothing else. My last call to SLS in late XXXX/XXXX is the worst of all. I called the number I've always called went through the lengthy weight. Voicemail prompts and ended up with someone on the other end who I once more explained the sequence of events to whereby this person said they were going to put me on a brief hold and get their supervisor. When the person got on the phone I assumed they were with the tax or escrow department which is what I had asked for based on my conversation with the man and the tax department prior and of course he wants to record me of which I've said yes to every one of them and I proceed to tell him the sequence of events. I tell him as I've told a few other people I want to pay them the money back that they paid to the taxing authority so that I could be square with them and we could reset my mortgage arrangement to where had been comfortably for me for 16 years but it was no longer about property taxes it was about escrow in the amount I supposedly owed on coinciding dates showing from two different documents from the same company and ranged from an escrow shortage of - {$440.00} to a shortage of {$2500.00}. I press the gentleman and said I wanted to pay what they had paid the property tax office and I would assume responsibility for finding out what happened that started this mess out and do what I had to do to remedy it but what I was saying was at that moment I wanted to pay my servicing company the {$1100.00} they had paid my property tax entity in XXXX that they never notified me they paid until XXXX that somehowturned into a {$2500.00} escrow shortage on XX/XX/XXXX. Where my XXXX statement dated XX/XX/XXXX shows my escrow balance was XXXX. And what I wanted to pay should have also reflected that they had taken out an additional {$350.00} through my auto draft with my regular mortgage payment meaning and amount of around {$800.00} finally I got tired of his condescending bullying attitude and asked what can I pay you today to reset all of this to where I was XXXX fourth of this year with the tax office having been paid and you being paid back and me not having an escrow account. This XXXX had the nerve to tell me that it would take {$1400.00} and until I paid it he couldn't tell me if they would take me out of forced escrow. I hung up the phone I continued to make my monthly mortgage payment. It has come out of my account every month for the last 3 months and gotten to my servicing provider by the due date reflecting in my checking account balance and also because I'm having the bank pay them directly having that documentation so imagine my surprise after a call from executive services of the dispute center of SLS responding to letters my daughter who is a paralegal with a big law firm in XXXX sent to five divisions of SLS explaining everything I've just explained to you apologizing saying their intent was never to cause any more problems during this pandemic and that they have lifted the reverse escrow. Good news but I'm still concerned about the property taxes they paid to the taxing authority, what I owe them for that and how can I pay that so that we reset everything to XX/XX/XXXX as it had been for 16 years. Very nice lady obviously my daughter 's letter had ruffled some feathers but she did say she did not know that amount or how to do it but I needed to call the tax office. I called the tax office the very next day and that was a resounding you don't owe us anything you don't owe us anything a number of times so when yesterday I opened a letter from my mortgage company showing I had not paid my monthly mortgage payments for 3 months and was in default with less than 30 days to respond and already two weeks into that 30 days because the certified letter notice had been taped to the back of my mailbox where I couldn't see it or feel it until I was looking for a gift that came in the mail ( something that was worth rooting around for after all this bad newsi ) imagine my surprise ... I had talked to two or three SLS employees Thursday of last week and was told I didn't know any money and they had removed the forced escrow and not a XXXX word was said about a default. I don't buy into conspiracies that easily but considering my very low low imbalance and an equity of four times that amount in my home I can't just arbitrarily rule out the fact this wasn't purposed for then very outcome they almost obtained and that they weren't just stealing my home. 
. XXXX months of my life, maybe an important relationship that had just begun, my physical health and mental stability due to lack of sleep worrying about this, day in and day out I. 've lost 12 lb and I only weighed XXXX to begin with and when I needed to be focused on securing a more stable future for myself with the fallout from the pandemic I find everything I've worked for compromised as well as my perfect credit score of XXXX when it dropped 100 points in one day and it can only be as a byproduct of this because I am never late with my obligations and now my servicing company for my mortgage holder is showing I have not paid my mortgage payment in 3 months. 

I'm not a person falls into conspiracy theories on one read but I've done my research and I don't know if this wasn't all intentional as I have a 4 to 1 ratio where I only owe 25 % on my loan amount and 75 % is equity. 
Can you please help me quickly I will be on the phone today with the bank but I can't do this much longer seriously I can't. 
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 explanation