Consumer complaint received 2020-06-18
Company: Shellpoint Partners, LLC
State: TX
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
I am reporting this company for mortgage fraud after months of patience, trying to work with them, and having them fraudulently draft money that wasn't owed from my account, lying to me, and making changes to my account without my authorization or knowledge. 

In the middle of a pandemic/recession, with my wife out of a job and my tenant unable to pay rent, this company has repeatedly XXXX   us over to the tune of thousands of dollars. My issues have not been resolved despite countless emails and hours on the phone. Luckily, I am in a situation where I will be fine financially, but I am worried for other consumers who are on more of a shoestring budget or not as financially literate as I am. 

Specifically, NewRez first overpaid my property taxes by thousands of dollars. The company then tripled my monthly escrow draft, increasing it by ~ $ XXXX/month based on their inflated estimation of my property taxes for the following year and a shortage. All during a pandemic/recession and right as my wife lost her job due to COVID-19 and my tenant became unable to pay rent for similar reasons. For the month of XXXX, I was completely unable to contact the company. They did not respond to emails or the contact form on their website, and when I called any of the numbers I could find for them, it came back as disconnected or unavailable. 

It took several months and many hours of my time on the phone and via email to get them to finally update their estimation of the next year 's property taxes, after which they still didn't update my escrow payments. During this time the company also put me on a forbearance plan, which I did not ask for. They canceled my autopay against my will. 

Finally, they agreed to cancel my escrow account and allow me to pay my own home insurance and property taxes. However, this process has now dragged on for over a month. Despite repeated promises from the company 's agents that my escrow would be canceled and I would " receive my escrow disbursement within 7-10 days '', the company apparently canceled my request to cancel my escrow without any notification to me. The stated reason is that I needed to pay back an escrow shortage, despite the fact my escrow account has a positive balance. So NewRez was asking me to wire them thousands of dollars so that they could close my escrow account and wire back my money, tying up even more of my money in what would surely amount to months more time. During this process, NewRez once again put me on a forbearance plan and canceled my autopay without my authorization or request. 

When you boil it all down, NewRez has repeatedly drafted money from my account based on faulty numbers and not following through on its own promises and continues to lie and misrepresent the situation to me, while taking money out of my account that by the company 's own account, should not be taken out. The customer service has been so poor, I wouldn't even call it customer service. 

While I certainly am upset for my own rights, money, and the egregious amount of time I've had to waste with this sorry excuse for a company, I am more concerned for other consumers who are less financially literate and less able to withstand the fraudulent drafting of nearly $ XXXX/month of extra money from their account in the middle of a pandemic/recession. This isn't a complicated business. I've done the math for them and tried to help them resolve this. No company this incompetent should be allowed to stay in business, for the safety of consumers.

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