Consumer complaint received 2016-07-25
Company: SUNTRUST BANKS, INC.
State: TN
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional fixed mortgage
Issue: Loan servicing, payments, escrow account

Complaint:
Suntrust mortgage ( SMI ) incorrectly adjusted mortgage based on 30-day LIBOR, not the documented US Treasury index. As a result, the mortgage was overpaid. I contacted SMI who initially denied such error, but after pressure admitted to the error. I was advised by SMI to temporarily stop payments on both subject loans so that the SMI research team could recalculate interest and balance the accounts. Calculated overbilling and overpayments as determined by SMI research dept, were in excess of {$1600.00}. 

In the meantime, SMI loss mitigation division began to initiate foreclosure proceeding for non-payment. Daily phone calls, mortgage foreclosure packages and even site visits by inspectors to the property were conducted by SMI. I begged SMI to make my monthly payments to stop the harassing foreclosure calls, letters and site visits, even though I was overpaid by {$1600.00}. Finally they agreed to internally contact their loss mitigation team and figure a way to correct their internal reporting and customer communication issues. Simultaneously I had a SMI mortgage loan officer trying to sell me a no-doc mortgage refinance of both loans. 

After over 4 months of near daily communication trying to resolve this issue, I was finally able to get in touch with the SMI Customer Delight Manager. This individual took ownership of the problem and began coordination of the following departments within SMI : Research, Loan Operations, Loss Mitigation and Office of the President. At the direction of the Customer Delight Manager SMI chose to cease all communication with all departments within SMI and to the customer Nearly five months after SMI was initially contacted, the loan was readjusted to the proper US Treasury index and the interest overpayment was rebated ( and then I chose to modify to fixed rate. ) XX/XX/XXXX regularly scheduled monthly mortgage payments were made via electronic bill pay service as is the normal delivery practice. SMI noticed me of formal default and pre-foreclosure proceedings in a letter dated XXXX XXXX, XXXX. There was no courtesy notice that the payments were received or not received. I immediately contacted the financial institution that sent the regularly scheduled monthly electronic payments and they noted there was an issue in sending the payment to SMI. 

I immediately contacted SMI and explained the situation and made both the XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX payments in full XX/XX/XXXX. After talking with several levels of management at SMI XX/XX/XXXX, they advised me that there was an " NON-CUSTOMER AUTHORIZED flag on both of the subject accounts NOT TO CONTACT THE CUSTOMER for delinquency purposes. '' The SMI manager stated that this was an account flag placed by a SMI employee to stop foreclosure contact processes as a result of the prior problem noted above. I was informed by this manager that this " flag '' should have been removed upon the original resolution of the problem above. 

The SMI manager stated it was a bank error, removed the bank imposed no contact flag, adjusted the accounts and rebated the late charges, as he stated that XXXX made an error and should have contacted me via phone and not sent out default/pre-foreclosure notices. I was thankful for his assistance in resolving the bank 's error. Now, many months later it has been brought to my attention that SMI reported that my co-borrower and I were 30-days late for the XXXX XXXX loan payments to the XXXX major credit bureaus. 

SMI was contacted on numerous occasions and given the opportunity to resolve. They promised a letter opening the case and a resolution letter, none have been received. Numerous phone calls have either been disconnected or messages ( person, voice & mail ) have gone unanswered. 

SMI takes no responsibility and refuses to even return phone calls. SMI must resolve this situation

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