Consumer complaint received 2016-06-20
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: IL
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional fixed mortgage
Issue: Loan servicing, payments, escrow account

Complaint:
Unfair, deceptive and abusive debt collection practices in violation of the FDCPA, 15 U.S.C. 1692 et seq. and the XXXX. BofA has also violated the IL ICFA, XXXX ILCS XXXX et seq. 
I have a mortgage with BofA. My payment for XXXX 2016 was {$74.00} ( XXXX XXXX ) dollars short due to an increase in my homeowners insurance. My mortgage is on auto payments through my BofA checking account, and this amount did not account for the insurance increase. 
Month after month, BofA calls me and my husband repeatedly on our cell phones to tell us that our mortgage payment is late. We explain that the reason it 's " late '' is because of the insurance issue, then we spend hours on the phone trying to get them to change our automatic payment amount to reflect the right amount. For some reason BofA ca n't change automatic payment amounts that come from its own checking accounts. The last time I called I went online with the agent so he could walk me through the process to change the amount. The agent could n't tell me what the correct payment amount was, and he told me that I had an upcoming amount scheduled that was different from what the BofA website was showing me I had set up the payments for. I ca n't change my payment amount, nor can anyone tell me what my actual payment is. I go through this process monthly with BofA, and this time, they reported both me and my husband as late on our credit reports and charged a late fee. 
On Saturday, XXXX XXXX, 2016, a debt collector came to my home and put a debt collection letter on my front door. I am attaching a copy of the correspondence to. The envelope states that " We are expecting your call today '' and provides a XXXX phone number. It did n't look like " official '' bank correspondence, because what kind of bank sends debt collectors to peoples ' houses? They literally sent someone to my home, where my children live, in front of our neighbors, to put a debt collection letter on my front door. 
Accordingly, instead of calling the XXXX number, we called the number listed on our mortgage statement. The language " we are expecting your call today, '' with the fact that someone had come to our home, and knowing that BofA screws this up every month and wo n't let us fix it, concerned us. When my husband called, he was told there were no agents available to help him. Getting more concerned, he then called the XXXX number on the correspondence that was left on my front door. To get any information about what was going on, my husband had to provide full authentication ( name, address, SSN, DOB ). He felt pressured to provide it, even though he had no idea if the XXXX number he was calling was actually BofA. Finally the agent told him we were {$74.00} short, which we paid. 
For the sake of the Bank 's ability to evaluate my demand prior to filing suit I will enumerate some of the acts which satisfy the various legal standards : 1. Sending a debt collector to my home and putting debt collection materials on my front door 2. Failure to include mini-Miranda on debt collector correspondence left on my front door 3. Not allowing changes to automatic payment amount 4. Being unaware of the payment scheduled, the payment being taken, and the actual payment amount 5. Putting statements like " We are expecting your call today, '' creating a sense of extreme urgency, then not having agents available at the established phone number appearing on the official statement 6. Using a phone number on debt collection correspondence left on consumers ' front doors which is not the number disclosed on the Bank of America mortgage statements or on its mortgage website, making it impossible to know who you are calling and providing all of your personal information to 9. Reporting late to credit bureaus when failure to pay in full on time is due to Bank 's actions

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