Consumer complaint received 2017-01-08
Product: Mortgage — Conventional fixed mortgage
Issue: Loan servicing, payments, escrow account — 
Company: Freedom Mortgage Company (CA)

This a request for reimbursement of {$21.00} from Freedom Mortgage as well as a request for a review by the appropriate authority of a questionable business practice on the part of Freedom Mortgage that likely results in impacts to many unknowing mortgage customers. The background follows : I sold a property at XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX, CA that had a mortgage with Freedom Mortgage. The business address and contact information provided for Freedom Mortgage on my previous mortgage statements is as follows : XXXX, XXXX, TX XXXX. 

The property transaction closed on XXXX XXXX, 2016 and I am providing the closing statement. Upon close inspection of the closing statement, I discovered that I had been charged a late payment fee by Freedom Mortgage that they received as part of my loan pay-off. Because I knew that there had never been a late payment on this loan, ( and I did double-check that all previous mortgage checks had cleared appropriately ), I called Freedom Mortgage to have this addressed. Freedom mortgage staff verified that I never had a late mortgage payment on my account. 

After verifying that I have never had a late payment for this mortgage, I had numerous discussions with Freedom mortgage staff trying to be reimbursed for the late fee that was applied in error. At first, I was told by Freedom Mortgage staff that the late fee appeared on the estimated closing statement " in case '' there was a future late mortgage payment, but that the final closing statement did not include it. However, I pointed out that the final closing statement I held in my hand did indeed include that late fee. After being run around to numerous departments, Freedom mortgage staff finally did acknowledge that there was an error and put in an " order '' to have me reimbursed. However, nobody apparently followed up on this " order. '' To date, I have not been reimbursed and have made numerous follow up calls, but no one has been able to resolve this or provide an explanation. On XXXX XXXX alone, I invested approximately 1-1/2 hours trying to resolve this. I also had a follow up call of over 20 minutes on XXXX XXXX and several calls in between. My mortgage escrow reimbursement for the loan closure did not show reimbursement of this late fee. As well, numerous discussions I had with staff trying to resolve this issue occurred after receipt of my mortgage escrow refund check, so I do not believe it was resolved through the escrow reimbursement. 

At this point, the extra-ordinary amount of time I have had to spend to right this situation is not worth the {$21.00} I stand to be reimbursed. However, I am livid over the terrible customer service, the fact that I am still owed {$21.00} with no explanation why I have not yet received reimbursement, and especially the unscrupulous business practice of including a late fee on a payoff statement " in case '' there is a future late mortgage payment. Please keep in mind that there was never a late payment on my account, that the escrow in question was originally scheduled to close on XXXX XXXX, 2016, and the fee applied " in case '' was for the XXXX, 2016 mortgage payment. Even though the property sale closed on XXXX XXXX, 2016, this was still well in advance of XXXX XXXX, 2016, the first date when a late-payment fee could have possibly applied on this mortgage. I wonder how many other consumers may have paid a similar unjustified late charge that was applied " just in case '' and never reversed. Any assistance you can provide is appreciated.