Consumer complaint received 2020-08-18
Company: Caliber Home Loans, Inc.
State: WA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: FHA mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
We hold our current FHA mortgage with Caliber Home Loans. We have always had to pay via the online portal, despite recurring issues with the online portal where the payment wasn't processing, which happens often. 

For phone payment, they use XXXX XXXX as a third party processor and we were told by an agent that there's a payment issue between XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX. They offer no live person to take payment over the phone. Therefore, consumers who bank with XXXX are often unable to use their phone payment system. 

On Friday, XX/XX/XXXX, we called in to pay our mortgage for XXXX so it would post same-day but again the phone system wouldn't work. Caliber has a log showing we called in according to the agent we spoke with. We had the funds to pay. 

Therefore because we were out of options, we made an online payment early in the day on XX/XX/XXXX for the due balance for XXXX. We received no error messages, and we received confirmation of their receipt of payment through a secure message on their website. I am attaching this for your review. Also of note, this is a shorter month with 29 days. We were notified a few weeks later through our XXXX apps, that the payment was marked as 30 days late. 

At this time, we called Caliber Home Loans to dispute the late payment and we were told that we should have paid via the phone system for it to post same day. We told them that we DID try ; their phone system wouldn't authorize our debit card or ACH check as it didn't in XX/XX/XXXX when we tried to use the system while travelling outside the country. We had ample funds to clear both times. They apologized for the issue with the phone system. 

They said that since we paid online, and before 30 days, it did not matter because the payment posted to their system XX/XX/XXXX. Caliber stated that even though they have record of our payment on the XXXX of XXXX, they will not update the credit reports to show an on-time payment. However, Caliber agent XXXX XXXX said they did not charge us a late fee for 30-days late because it wasn't 30 days late. Their files indicate we were not charged 30 day late fee. 

At this time, we filed with all 3 credit bureaus a dispute of the reported late payment by Caliber, and on XX/XX/XXXX XXXX  investigated and deleted the late payment from our credit files.

Now we are trying to refinance our home to save money during the pandemic, and we are unable to qualify solely because of this one reported late payment that was actually not 30 days late. We have never been 30 days late on any mortgage. Please help us to ensure that we are able to hold Caliber to the date we paid the loan and not when it posted for them ; which could be an arbitrary amount of time. If their internal system didn't show 30 days late, and we have confirmation of payment made on the XXXX, their reporting is unjust. 

If they had a way for consumers to pay via phone that works for all consumers, this would not have occurred. They need to offer the ability to speak to a live agent to take payment and they need to update our payment information with XXXX  and XXXX. 

How can they NOT charge us a 30-day late fee, yet report it as 30 days late to the credit bureaus? They must offer another same-day processing option due to their repeated third party processor issues.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation