Consumer complaint received 2021-05-05
Company: United Shore Financial Services, LLC
State: CA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
United Wholesale Mortgage ( UWM ) has been using false claims, miscalculations, fake accounting, lies and no customer support or response to complaints in order to not pay over taxes XXXX escrow and overcharge us over XXXX in order to create a situation where we can not keep up with our mortgage payments so they can foreclose on our house. 

UWM has miscalculated our escrow payments and are charging us {$1100.00} in excess every month. This has caused us to go into overdraft for 3 months in a row, accumulating numerous overdraft fees. 

We have spent 6 months continuously working to prevent UWM from bankrupting us, including the following actions : 1. WE HAVE DEMANDED AN OFF-CYCLE ESCROW AUDIT FROM UWM. We notified them of their error for on XX/XX/XXXX. UWM did nothing. We notified UWM via email again on XX/XX/XXXX. They said they would have an answer within 6 weeks. They never answered. We contacted the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX in XXXX and THEY CONFIRMED UWM 's TAX ESTIMATE WAS WRONG, but UWM again did nothing to correct the error, " because you didn't request an off-cycle escrow audit '' their agent said. 

Our accounting of UWM 's ESCROW calculation, which were verified by their staff over the phone, has been emailed to them multiple times ( dates included above ) and are outlined as follows : A. As confirmed by the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, we will owe approximately {$23000.00} in property taxes for the XXXX billing cycle, which can be confirmed this by looking at the XXXX XXXX Property Tax Web Site, XXXX XXXX XXXX. By adding the supplemental bill for XXXX to the secured bill for XXXX, you will get the anticipated secured tax bill for the XXXX cycle. Because the property was sold to us in XXXX, the bill was issued in two parts that year, as a secured and a supplemental bill. In the future, there will be no supplemental bill, only the secured bill ( which will be for the total I noted ). 

B. We will owe approximately {$2100.00} in homeowner 's insurance. Combining this with the property taxes yields a total escrow account need of {$25000.00} for the XXXX billing cycle. Dividing this amount by 12 results in {$2100.00} per month that needs to be collected as escrow.

C. UWM is charging us {$3200.00} per month in escrow. That is {$1100.00} more per month than they should be charging us. Even accounting for possible increases in the tax rate, they are still charging us over a {$1000.00} more per month than they should be.

2. WE HAVE DEMANDED THAT UWM REIMBURSE US OUR ESCROW ACCOUNT FOR THE {$220.00} IN LATE FEES THEY AGREED TO PAY IN WRITING.

We had to file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ( CFPB ) regarding UWM 's refusal over XXXX in taxes in XXXX despite our repeated requests. Finally, they did pay the bill, one of them LATE. This incurred a {$220.00} penalty. UWM ASSURED US IN A LETTER SENT BY MAIL ( INCLUDED ) THAT UWM WOULD PAY THIS PENALTY, but instead UWM took it out of OUR escrow funds. I have attached the letter UWM sent to the CFPB, in which UWM assured us they would be paid the fine. We have attached the bill showing UWM charged us the money from our escrow account. DESPITE REPEATED CALLS, UWM HAS NEVER REIMBURSED US THIS LATE FEE, WHICH THEY TOLD THE CFPB THEY WOULD REIMBURSE TO US. UWM has never even replied to this complaint or acknowledged it in any way. UWM lied to us and to the CFPB.

In the letter to the CFPB, UWM even said they would send us a {$25.00} Visa gift card because of all we had to go through to get them to pay the tax bill as is their obligation under the escrow agreement. They never sent us anything. I refer to the attached letter that UWM send to CFPB regarding our case ( included in attachments, in which UWM made that commitment.

We have begun applying for a refinancing of our loan in order to get away from UWM 's depredatory banking practices ( today XX/XX/XXXX ). XXXX XX/XX/XXXX, we sent them another email letter of complaint ( included in attachments ) and we spent several hours on the phone, which was cut off after a lengthy explanation was given for our complaint ( which has happened at least once every phone call we have ever made to them ). We had to repeat the lengthy wait times and complicated explanation again to another UWM staff member. After over an hour ( much of it lengthy hold times ) we were told nothing could be done ( which is also the statement we are given over the phone every time we've called ( phoning records available ). After much aggressive insistences by us to speak with a higher up and resistance/refusal by UWM ( also a consistent and chronic experience during phone engagements with UWM ), they agreed to have a manager call us back XX/XX/XXXX the next day. Nobody ever called, which again is typical of their fake customer service*. 

[ [ [ [ *On a previous occasions we did receive a call back from managers, but we ourselves were not available to speak at the time and the number that they left us to call them back was not their direct line, but the general phone line that we always have to call and the only one they ever provide, that involves dropped calls, lengthy wait times and unhelpful ; disempowered staff. Again we called the number and repeated our attempts to explain the escrow issue with the same routine of lengthy wait times, laborious phone tress and aggressive debates with unknowledgeable, disempowered UWM staff. Again after hours of frustrating, redundant efforts we were told a manger would call us back. This time we were available to speak with the manager when he called. He was distracted, ignorant, unable to understand the problem, and ultimately unhelpful except to redirect us to another completely different apartment by email that was not listed anywhere. We emailed the department, and we received no response. The process we went through to follow up on their lack of response would take paragraphs and we had to gather much documentation from XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX that UWM already had ] ] ] ] *.

It is clear that UWM is practicing a well documented practice of intentional theft and cover up through miscalculation, false accounting, obfuscation and fake customer service. They wear their customers down by burdening them with having to figure out and document how they are being driven into bankruptcy by UWM 's maneuverings to not fulfill their financial obligations to pay taxes, and illegally increase their customers ' mortgage payment so high that they can not pay them and then foreclose on their house. Not until we involved the CFPB has UWM ever taken any action to resolve or admit to their malfeasance ( which they call " an inadvertent oversight '' ), and even then they took that opportunity to unjustifiably raise our mortgage payments through the same malpractices they used before to avoid paying over XXXX in taxes ( the complaint to the CFPB regarding this issue on file under this same login with CFPB ). Through false accounting, wrongful increases in mortgage payments, cover up and providing no way to speak with someone who could resolve their overcharges and underpayments, UWM is intentionally creating situations where they can foreclose on our house.

UWM should be audited, sued, its directorship fired, and restructured. We will certainly pursue class action lawsuits and seek to support others who are being similarly driven to foreclosure due to UWM 's criminal endeavors. 

In summary : We have been calling and emailing UWM multiple times a week since XX/XX/XXXX, but all of our communication with UWM ( including multiple phone calls and emails ) have been ignored, laborious, frustrated, cyclical and otherwise thwarted. Concerns addressed in emails have never been responded too and employees who answer the phone, drop calls, enact lengthy wait times ( while confirming that we are correct that UWM is in error ), then insist they can be of no help and redirect us cyclically through unhelpful managers and email addresses that never respond. 

This is the second time in 6 months that we have had to file a complaint with the CFPB against UWM. The first time it was because of their refusal to pay XXXX in property taxes due their claim that we lacked adequate funds in our escrow account, a claim which was demonstrably false. We only got them to pay those taxes ( late ) by involving the CFPB and they docked our escrow account to pay their late fee even though they made a commitment in writing ( included ) that " any penalties associated with late payment of this ( tax ) bill will be covered by UWM and not billed to your escrow account ''. Now they have falsely recalculated our escrow payments and they are overcharging us unsustainably. If they had succeeded in their previous attempt to not pay our taxes ( making us pay them instead ) then they would have bankrupted us and foreclosed on our home. If they succeed this time in overcharging us for escrow they will also achieve the same end. My wife ( XXXX XXXX, the loan mortgage account holder ) has become suicidal in the last weeks of these proceedings. 

UWM is overwhelming our resources with their bureaucratic obfuscations, continued nonresponsiveness, overcharges and failure to pay property taxes on time and correctly. We have spent over 200 hours figuring out and documenting their false accounting of our escrow, mortgage accounts and property taxes. We are in our third month of overdraft due to their over charges and my wife ( whose salary pays the mortgage while I care for our two special needs autistic children ) has become suicidal and unable to cope with them directly.

Only after involving the CFPB has UWM ever addressed our concerns directly and then they continued to create situations where they over charge us while they retain our excess escrow funds and refuse to pay taxes they are obligated in writing to pay.

We are asking the CFPB to : 1. Compel UWM to immediately correct their mortgage and escrow calculations and stop overcharging us. 

2. Compel UWM to immediately refund the amounts theyve been overcharging us since XXXX. 

3. Compel UWM to pay all federal and state property tax late fees and our overdraft fees accrued due to their errors.

4. Compel UWM to pay the cost of refinancing our mortgage with another company, an endeavor we have undertaken as a means of protecting us from UWMs depredation. 

Thank you very much for your consideration.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation