Consumer complaint received 2021-09-30
Company: U.S. BANCORP
State: OH
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
U.S. Bank services me and my wife 's new mortgage. I have a home worth north of $ XXXX that I only owe $ XXXX on. Very low leverage loan on a new construction home- was originated in XX/XX/2021. 

I happened to look up my home this week on my local county auditor 's site ( XXXX County, Ohio ) only to find that my second half property taxes that were due months ago were never paid at all by U.S. Bank. There's a {$530.00} balance plus a {$53.00} penalty for being delinquent, so a total balance of {$580.00}. Meanwhile, U.S. Bank has {$5200.00} of my money sitting in a tax escrow account. U.S. Bank never reached out to me or anything- I found this out on my own. 

I talked to U.S. Bank 's tax department and it turns out they made an error on their end and have the wrong parcel number associated with my mortgage. They ended up paying my neighbor 's tax bill ( across the street ) of {$540.00} instead of my tax bill of {$530.00} back in XX/XX/2021, and did so using my money. It wasn't a matter of being off by one digit on the parcel- it was a completely wrong parcel number. Months have gone by and U.S. Bank never caught the error or reached out to me other than spam calls to try to sell me banking services. 

Now I have to deal with U.S. Bank " figuring the situation out '' internally and wait what I'm sure will end up being weeks for a resolution on how I'm going to be refunded for my neighbor 's taxes that I paid, how my taxes are going to get paid, and who is responsible for the penalty. Every time I call I wait on hold and I am then sent to a different person and have to re-verify my account info and recant the whole situation to each new person. This is a massive inconvenience for something that isn't even my fault. 

Several months ago prior to this issue happening, I reached out to U.S. Bank to see if I could have the large balance in my escrow account refunded to me and the escrow removed so that I can pay taxes directly to my local county. They ended up refunding me the bare minimum amount required per the federal guidelines and told me that if I want to remove the escrow, I need to pay them a {$600.00} - {$700.00} fee for the privilege of doing so. At the time we were escrowing almost {$1000.00} a month for taxes when our actual tax bill is only {$1100.00} per year - causing a huge overage/overpayment accruing in our escrow account. Given the usurious $ XXXX fee - I declined to move forward. 

U.S. Bank has proved they are incompetent via the non-payment of our taxes and using my escrow funds to pay my neighbor 's tax bill. I don't trust them and it's not fair that I, the consumer, have to babysit a big national bank/lender to ensure my taxes are paid and deal with the current headache that should have never happened in the first place. Consumers shouldn't have to pay a usurious fee to their lender for the privilege to pay their property taxes on time and direct to the taxing authority, especially when they are not a risky borrower. We have a very low leverage loan and are a high credit score borrower. The risk of us not paying our taxes correctly or on time is extremely minimal to U.S. Bank and the bondholders that ultimately own our loan. 

Furthermore, now that I'm a U.S. Bank home mortgage customer by default ( obviously wasn't my choice who my mortgage got sold to/serviced by ), they have passed my contact information along to their local branches and I get spam phone calls from their bankers trying to earn my banking business. I don't ever remember signing anything that authorized them to do this. 

This all has to stop.

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 monetary relief