Consumer complaint received 2021-10-13
Company: Freedom Mortgage Company
State: OH
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: FHA mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
I purchased my home on XX/XX/XXXX through XXXX XXXX company. My mortgage was sold to Freedom Mortgage ( FM ) shortly after. I have never been 30 days late on my mortgage payments- even when I was unemployed for 9 months in XXXX. I always make my payments on FM 's website, but I have had a number of occasions where the payment did not get processed for whatever reason. 

I am certain that I made online payments between XXXX and XXXX. I have received no phone calls, emails, or letters from FM regarding a delinquent payment until XX/XX/XXXX, which I opened today. The letter was dated XX/XX/XXXX and stated that I was delinquent for XXXX. I was beyond confused. So I immediately made a payment in the amount of {$1400.00} and called FM due to concern that the delinquency had been reported. 

I spoke with XXXX, a supervisor with FM, explaining my frustration that I should have been notified BEFORE the payment was 30 days past due - meanwhile, FM has consistently called me ( as well as emailed and sent letters ) asking me to refinance with it this year alone. She claimed that because I had opted out of paper correspondence, they did not send correspondence. I asked how, then, did I get a statement in XXXX and this XX/XX/XXXX letter stating that I was delinquent. I further asked why I did not get a phone call. She said that FM called numerous times - my phone saves all voicemails, even deleted, for about a year. The last time FM contacted me was XX/XX/XXXX. They DID NOT call me to inform me that the payment was past due. 

XXXX offered to have their technical team look into the issue, and if they can find that I made an attempt to pay, they will remove the reported delinquent payment. So I posed a hypothetical - what if I made an honest mistake and did not make the payment? I doubt that seriously, but what if I did? Is that not where FM comes in and timely notifies me that I am past-due - as they had done so in the past? 

When I was on the FM website earlier this month to pay my mortgage and check the outstanding principle for my own personal debt managing purposes, nothing showed delinquent. I fail to understand how FM can get away with reporting a borrower who has a history of timely payments, as well as documented instances of FM 's website not processing my payments, without notifying the borrower first. Now my excellent credit will be tarnished by FM 's purposeful refusal to timely notify me that a payment was not received so that I may cure the issue before it got to the point of negative reporting on my credit report. My husband and I were preparing to either purchase or build a new home- now I do not know how this will affect it. Honestly, I think FM did this on purpose because I reported it to CFPB and the Ohio Civil Rights Commission last year. I think this is payback for making it be a responsible lender, but it is not fair, because I am a responsible consumer. My credit report, before FM 's negative reporting hits it, reflects that.

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