Consumer complaint received 2021-03-14
Company: REGIONS FINANCIAL CORPORATION
State: IN
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
We believe the FDIC recently referred this complaint to the CFPB, however it has been market as a duplicate. While it may be similar to a previous complaint, new details regarding Region 's unwillingness to answer questions about the client 's escrow account have been added. Furthermore, if you review their response to the first complaint, Regions simply rehashed a timeline of what happened without acknowledging the issue whatsoever, let alone attempting to offer a solution. We implore the CFPB to review the unwillingness of Regions to address the client 's concerns in the first complaint and based on your review, consider refraining from closing the complaint. In our opinion, companies should not be allowed to type a long response with tangential details to fool the public with the appearance that they have actually attempted to resolved the issue with the client. 

( For full details, a file with chronological correspondence with Regions Bank has been attached. ) XX/XX/XXXX : contacted customer support to request that my next [ extra, manual ] payment be applied to principal only. XX/XX/XXXX : customer service answered affirmatively, that my next payment would be applied as requested, and advised client to proceed with making payment online, which was initiated on XXXX XXXX XX/XX/XXXX : by default, online system drafted extra {$1500.00} beyond what was requested ( {$3000.00} ). A total of {$4500.00} was debited and additional ( regularly scheduled ) {$1500.00} autodraft for XX/XX/XXXX took place. Regions took that extra {$1500.00} and held it for two weeks and applied it to my next scheduled payment. Client would later serendipitously learn that Regions did not even apply the {$3000.00} to principal until after these two weeks. XX/XX/XXXX : notified customer service of the issue and requested rectification. Ensuing weeks : often received no response and had to send follow-up reminders to solicit a response ; most of the replies did not address concerns at all and were dismissive. Initially asked if customer wanted a refund via wire transfer and customer chose wire. But only later warned warned customer that this option would make the customer delinquent. Customer service continued to insinuate the notion that the customer was somehow responsible for giving that extra payment, which has been vehemently disputed. Regions online system and instructions were misleading, and one of their agents ( XXXX ) admitted as much. XX/XX/XXXX : Customer asked if they were eligible for an escrow refund/reduction, to this day, still have not received a response. Current escrow balance is {$10000.00} and Regions takes $ XXXX/month to escrow. Customer closed on this home in late XX/XX/XXXX. XX/XX/XXXX : Despite customer service claiming the whole time that " everything was correct, '' a supervisor eventually tacitly admitted that a separate mistake was also made. Client made a {$3000.00} principal-only payment on XX/XX/XXXX. Apparently, the extra {$1500.00} Regions debited without client 's authorization was held in limbo for 17 days. That {$3000.00} was ALSO held and not applied to the principal at all until AFTER this extra XXXX unauthorized ) debit. The supervisor fixed this mistake ( which ironically wasn't even the concern the client had been inquiring about ). This resulted in a reduction of interest by {$3.00} .... This whole experience has been a mess and the Regions Customer Service team has been a nightmare to work with. Clarity and Transparency pledges are advertised on their website. This was one of the reasons we chose Regions to help buy our first home a few months ago. Unfortunately they have been anything but, and continue to gaslight us.

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