Consumer complaint received 2023-03-22
Company: CrossCountry Mortgage LLC
State: CA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
On XX/XX/2023 I contacted my loan servicer CrossCountry Mortgage, LLC through their online chat customer service. I inquired about the supplemental tax bill I received by the county and if it is possible to be paid with my escrow account. The customer representative confirmed that they can but they would need to reevaluate my escrow account and increase my monthly so that money gets paid back to the escrow account because it is not within their responsibility. Afterwards, I inquired about the conditions to close an escrow account. The customer representative said she would ask the appropriate department and get back to me with an answer. She also requested that I send a copy of my Property Tax bill which I sent via email. 

Attached in screenshot # XXXX, I sent the property tax bill and I received a response on XXXX XXXX XXXX, thanking me for this information. 

After not receiving an answer for over a week to my question about closing an escrow account I followed up asking if they had a response to my question on XX/XX/2023, screenshot # XXXX Low and behold on XX/XX/2023, I receive the extremely surprising response that they have attached the decision letter regarding your escrow account removal request ( there was never a formal request made on my behalf ) and that they have paid my supplemental taxes ( once again I never made a formal request to pay these ). See screenshot # XXXX. 

I contacted their customer service on XX/XX/2023 and they confirmed that they paid this supplemental bill because I had not paid it and it was delinquent. Unfortunately, my supplement bill is delinquent after XX/XX/2023, so that did not hold up. Unsurprisingly, they then said that I had made a request to pay this supplement bill. Once again, I never made this request. 

We confirmed with the customer service representative that any request, whether it is to pay a supplement tax bill or close an escrow account must be a signed letter from me. Since these requests never existed, it is extremely concerning that this servicer is taking action on a clients behalf without their consent. Moreover, their processes seem to be broken given that a simple chat inquiry lead to such disastrous actions on their behalf. 

When I asked for the online chat transcript of XX/XX/2023, they said I needed to email to make a request to their Research Department by writing a letter with my request and sign it, the exact same way I would of needed to do for them to pay my supplement tax bill and close my escrow account, which I never did. 

I have yet to receive the chat transcript which I have requested. 

My escrow monthly has now increased due to their mistake. Their solution is to reverse the supplement tax bill payment they made, have me pay this in less than 2 weeks. This is unacceptable. I demanded that they leave the tax bill paid and not increase my escrow monthly because it was blatant overreach on their part. 

A simple inquiry to their online chat service has resulted in a financially disastrous situation for me, having to come up with more than XXXX XXXX dollars in next couple of days due to their inadequate processes. It is scary to think that this company is handling such big amounts of money as are involved in a mortgage. Moreover, when you head over to their online dashboard that they provide clients it is a disaster. The information provided is extremely poor, you can not view any requests nor their statuses because they do not have a section for requests. 

In summary, they acted on my behalf without a formal request, signed letter, as they require. They lied that my they did so because my supplemental bill ( screenshot # XXXX ) was delinquent. Then they lied that they did so because I made a request. Then they lied that I requested it in the chat ( these requests must be a signed letter by me, never submitted one ). In addition, I only inquired about closing an escrow account they actually put in a request to close the escrow account.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation