Consumer complaint received 2023-12-26
Company: UNITED SERVICES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION
State: MI
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Home equity loan or line of credit (HELOC)
Issue: Applying for a mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage
Sub-issue: Confusing or misleading advertising or marketing

Complaint:
USSA deliberately lied and misled their customers who had home equity loans from as early as XXXX up to the present. Some time in XXXX they decided to stop writing these loans. That meant once the loan term expired the entire principal needed to be paid off. With the HELOC loans that only required an interest only payment, like mine, that meant almost the entire loan balance might be due by the end of the loan term. XXXX XXXX XXXX loan was for 20 years with a {$150000.00} line of credit. Here 's what they did and didn't do to cause me serious concerns about being able to keep my house. 

At some point in time after XXXX, I called USAA because I wanted to redo my loan agreement by increasing the credit line slightly and lengthen the term. I was told they weren't able to do that because they weren't writing anymore of these loans at this time. However I was also told by the same USAA equity loan employee that they expected to start writing these again within a year. When I called back again a couple years later, I was informed that they still weren't writing these loans but were still working on being able to do that soon. So getting closer to my due date in XX/XX/XXXX, I called again to try and redo my current home equity loan and was told that there were some new banking regulation issues they were still working on so these loans weren't available yet. At that point I knew they were lying to me because there were no new banking laws of significance that passed Congress that any lawyer who worked with banking laws couldn't resolve within a week. On another call on XXXX XXXX, I was told by a person named XXXX at USSA that they weren't writing anymore of these loans and there was no indication USSA was even thinking about doing that. What XXXX told me was confirmed by a person I got transferred to in their Consumer Complaints department who took down my complaint. They weren't writing anymore of these loans. No knowledge or expectations that they would write these loans again is what I was told at that time. Then just today XXXX, I spoke with another person in their Home Loan division who told me USAA in XXXX intended to write these loans again but then XXXX intervened and delayed their plans but now it's back on track once they get a new system set up. This conversation made me remember that I heard someone else tell me about them needing to set up a new system years ago. The lies kept changing and nothing ever got done. I think it only took several months for the US government to set up an entire system to handle the Affordable Care Act even though it took a short while longer to fix all the bugs in the system. 

So here 's how XXXX 's deceptions over about XXXX years may impact me. I am XXXX years older now and may face age discrimination in getting a new loan even though that is prohibited by law. More importantly my income isn't as high as it once was when I first asked them to redo my current home equity loan although my property has greatly increased in value so the money I still owe on this loan is less than a third of the total home value. Also with USAA I have never missed a single loan payment even during the Great Recession ( XXXX ) period and during the XXXX epidemic. Because interest rates remained relatively low during this entire period until recently there was no real incentive for me to make principal payments although I sometimes did that. It's important to keep in mind that my Home Equity Loan was always a first loan and not a second. And during the past XXXX years and likely all along, USAA has made it impossible to pay more than the minimum due on these loans using their automated system. And when I called this to their attention it was never fixed. I use automated systems to pay almost all my bills and have for years and USAA is THE only company financial or other that doesn't allow a customer to specify a payment amount. Yes, they allow for phone payments to be made for free through a representative, but that takes more time. 

I would also like to add that at no time did USAA inform me in writing or via email that they had stopped making Home Equity loans or if they were working on doing that again. Yet, for years they had all their home equity loan agents misleading customers who must have contacted them for the same reasons I had. While it's very possible USAA considered writing home equity loans again, they must not be allowed to claim they still could be considering this XXXX years later while misleading their customers all that time with varying reasons for not having done that yet. If they weren't going to be able to write these loans in about XXXX to XXXX years into the future, they should have told their customers they weren't writing these loans anymore and there was no serious timetable to ever do so. Instead they chose to string customers like me along for about 8 years hoping to hang onto and profit from these loans until the loans expired. Or maybe stringing their customers along like me until their loans expired were more beneficial to them because these loans were packaged and sold to others. 

All the reasons they gave me for not having restarted their home equity loan program were all misleading and false. First it doesn't take very long to update their operation to handle new banking regulations plus there hasn't been a major update to those regs in at least 10 years. As to needing to implement a new system that is false too. They already still have a system in place handling all their home equity loans that were written before they decided not to write anymore in XXXX. And they also have a working system in place handling all their other mortgage loans too. All these systems are updated all the time as normal routine updating. Whatever work they still need done from their IT department is not a job that takes 8 years to complete. That's total nonsense. The system they already have in place could still be used to renew or extend my current loan but they refused to do that. 

Because of the situation they placed me in by misleading me for all these years and with interest rates still very high but expected to drop as many as XXXX times next year, I am requesting this immediate relief.

1. USSA must be ordered to extend my current home equity loan for another full year. During that time I will seek another mortgage loan at better interest rates. I will also continue to pay all my taxes and insurance has I have done in the past. 
2. In the alternative, they can write me a new conventional mortgage that remains fixed for 5 years with a rate at or lower then 5.5 %. I would agree to pay minimal closing costs that total no higher than {$2500.00}. If mortgage interests rates drop below XXXX within the XXXX year period, they will refi my loan to the lowest rate with no costs or penalties. The new loan can be paid off at any time with no penalty.

3. They must be ordered to retain all their digital and other records relating to this issue with me and all their other customers with the same home equity loan as mine from XXXX to the present including the names and customer communication records of all of their XXXX XXXX personnel during this period who handled these accounts. 
4. I may be asking for other equitable relief that is fair and just for the potential added costs they have caused me because of all their falsehoods. 

To date their Customer Service Department and " Can't help me '', XXXX who was handling my complaint on XX/XX/XXXX, have failed to address my complaint and I have been unable to talk to her because she never answers her phone and when she calls me back, it's always been on an unidentified phone number and I rarely answer those calls. From the emails she's sent me this company doesn't fully understand the complaint and never addressed their blatant fraud because I would have considered paying closing costs if they had presented me with a viable option that took into account their 8 years of deliberate fraud. Instead they ONLY expect to come out whole with more profit. 

In conclusion USSA has been allowed to engage in an XXXX long fraud against their Home Equity customers like myself that must be addressed by them or adjudicated in the legal system. I hope your agency can resolve this problem for me and many others. If not, I am prepared to litigate for myself or as a class action plaintiff.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation