Consumer complaint received 2017-12-30
Company: U.S. BANCORP
State: IL
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Home equity loan or line of credit (HELOC)
Issue: Applying for a mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage

Complaint:
In the fall of XXXX, I was banking with XXXX XXXX XXXX for my business.  I secured an equity line of credit from them for XXXX to help me expand one of my businesses. This loan was at a very low rate and required interest only loan payments.  Shortly after acquiring this loan, XXXX XXXX XXXX closed and US Bank took over my existing interest only loan.   The recession that began in 2008 really impacted me and my newly expanded business did not survive it.  Despite having to close that business, I continued to make my equity line of credit payments on time every month for the entire 10 years of the loan.  My main business, and source of income, during that ten year loan period, was a family owned business which was averaging XXXX in gross income yearly.   Unfortunately, my family business suffered a catastrophic fire on XX/XX/XXXX, which forced us to close down abruptly.  This inevitably created many financial issues and stress for myself, and my family, and lowered my credit score to below 700 for the first time.When the equity line of credit was coming up to be due ten months later, I called US Bank to discuss renewing my loan.   At this time, I was in the middle of a lawsuit with the owners of the property where my business burned down and my source of income was significantly reduced.  We talked about acquiring a new loan, including paying off my first mortgage with XXXX, which was down to XXXX at that time. The response from US Bank was that my credit score was XXXX and because it was below 660, they could not complete my loan renewal.  This was the beginning of a long nightmare with US Bank.  Even though I spoke with the underwriter at US Bank at that time and he advised me that I was so close to the credit score of 660 that within 30-45 days, my score would increase enough because there were several corrections being made to my credit report.  Within one month of the equity line of credit expiring, despite working with them to try to renew the loan, US Bank reported me delinquent with my loan and they billed me for the XXXX. More than a year ago, I tried securing a loan from other financial institutions because US Bank had listed me delinquent and they were refusing to respond to my phone calls and when I spoke to anyone there, they would not answer any of my questions or confirm that they were working on providing me with a new loan. I contacted dozens of other funding sources, including trying to get a VA Loan, which I should be entitled to as a Veteran but each time I tried, no one was willing to provide me a loan because of the delinquency on my credit that was reported by US Bank.  As a result of those loan applications, and US Bank reporting me delinquent, my credit score has gone lower than it ever was before and it is now too low to secure any legitimate loan.For the past year and a half, US Bank has continuously requested financial information from me.  They have been calling me on a weekly basis requesting more information throughout the past 18 months, which made me believe that they were working on providing me a new loan to take care of the expired equity line of credit.  At one point during my negotiations with US Bank, I offered to pay XXXX cash up front towards my loan, which would have lowered my total balance owed to them to under $200,000.  This would’ve reduced my loan to value of my home to be as low at 58%, which for any bank would be a comfortable deal but they never responded to this offer.  I have supplied US Bank with all of their requested information, which has been multiple items, and often included duplicate information of things I previously gave them because they would somehow misplace what I sent and request it again.  A few weeks ago, I spoke with the loan person handling my account and she advised me that they had all of the information they needed from me and I should hear back from them within a few weeks with a decision about what loan options they could provide me.  Last week, I received a letter from US Bank demanding payment of the entire equity line of credit, plus interest, which stated a total of XXXX   was due within 30 days of the date of the letter (which it was already more than a week into that 30 days when I received the letter).The tremendous stress this experience with US Bank has caused me and my family is beyond words.  My wife has developed a rare form of XXXX XXXX, which her doctors have reported has been caused by stress.  It has been a complete nightmare dealing with this for the past year and a half.

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