Consumer complaint received 2021-09-13
Company: Rocket Mortgage, LLC
State: HI
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: VA mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
In XXXX of XXXX, pretty early in the Covid-19 Pandemic, we were offered to enter into a mortgage forbearance by our then lender, Quicken Loans. Not knowing when our financial situation would stabilize, I accepted the idea and applied for the forbearance. After a few months, after following every single requirement by Quicken Loans ( monthly check ins and updates via the Rocket Mortgage website customer portal and several emails and phone conversations as well ) and our financial situation stabilized, I applied for a mortgage modification to end the forbearance and bring our loan up to date. We accepted the terms and began to make the scheduled " trial period '' ( three months of payments based on the new, modified amount. ) After completing the trial period we continued to make the mortgage payment, not knowing that the modification was basically just like a refinance situation where we were required to meet with a notary public from a title company and certify that the loan modification was indeed how we planned on moving forward. This is where things got strange and there's a dispute between us ( customer, home owner, mortgagee ) and Quicken Loans ( lender, mortgage holder. ) We assumed everything was copacetic and continued to make our new scheduled payment. We were also contacted in the beginning of XX/XX/XXXX by a loan officer from Quicken who reviewed our account and told me that because we were in a loan modification trial period we couldn't refinance until XXXX and he'd be in touch with us then. Now we go to XX/XX/XXXX, when we were contacted by the Quicken Loans collections department using words like delinquent and foreclosure. I immediately explained our situation and asked to speak to a supervisor or manager who might understand the situation and potentially have the authority to correct any mistakes and make things right. I wish that was the end of the story, but no, after several weeks of stressful phone calls ( 15 phone calls speaking to 18 different people before I actually spoke to a 'manager ' ) and speaking to many different people in many different departments trying to decipher what had happened and how we got to where we were. We, as the homeowner/customer had made every single payment other than the payments that were deferred by the forbearance and we were being treated like we had defaulted on our mortgage and were six to eight months behind on our mortgage. Apparently, we had 'slipped through the cracks ' and they had hired a title company on XXXX XXXX we live on XXXX XXXX a different island separated by a 90 mile ocean channel ) and they apparently contacted us via a phone call and we declined to complete the paperwork and didn't care to continue with our loan modification ( this never happened, nobody ever contacted us, via phone, email, customer portal or otherwise. ) Things get even stranger here, apparently Quicken Loans decided to put us back into the original forbearance plan ( without our permission or any notification ) and decided to take the six mortgage payments I'd made and place them in a 'suspense account ' and use that to pay down our original mortgage based on the forbearance plan, again with no permission or communication with us that they were doing this. After several weeks of frustrating attempts to actually speak to someone who could explain to me what had happened and why, I finally contacted our VA advocate and get her involved. After several more weeks and her also trying to get a hold of someone at Quicken Loans that could actually help and explain what was happening I finally heard back from XXXX in the executive department. He's the one who actually lied to me and told me that we'd been contacted by the title company and declined to complete the paperwork and that we were not interested in continuing with our loan modification ( I tried to explain to him that this was nonsense, we never were contacted and that the title company was on XXXX which couldn't even get to us at that time due to Covid-19 related travel restrictions ) He just wanted to argue with me and place the blame squarely on us. I only found out the details of what had really happened by speaking to one of the many lower tiered employees, one of which explained that they were having trouble with the title company they dealt with in Hawaii with many customers 'slipping through the cracks '. I still wanted to give Quicken Loans a chance to earn my business as we had already refinanced with them twice and were loyal customers for nine years. This is where things go even worse ( if that's actually possible ) I was told I COULD NOT refinance with them or another company until our loan was up to date. Now, keep in mind, we have NEVER missed a payment besides the three we chose to miss in the forbearance program and they were deceiving me by telling me that I could not refinance. Because of their terrible customer service and us 'slipping through the cracks ' with the loan modification and title company, I decided that the best course of action was to move on and pursue a refinance with another mortgage company. Due to the complications from our situation with Quicken Loans, this took a few months to complete, my final portion of the complaint is regarding our payoff amount and a seemingly illegal and criminal adjustment of our final pay off to Quicken in which they decided to arbitrarily add approximately {$9000.00} of interest onto our loan by calculating interest starting on XX/XX/XXXX of XXXX through XX/XX/XXXX of XXXX ( XX/XX/XXXX was ironically when I started my 'trial period ' of our loan modification and subsequently the date they later decided to throw us back into a forbearance, again without our permission or knowledge. ) *the initial pay off document that expired XX/XX/XXXX did not have this additional {$9000.00} of interest. I would very much appreciate some assistance with getting some straight answers and see how this terrible experience and seemingly criminal practices are justified by Quicken Loans.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation