Consumer complaint received 2019-06-19
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Problem with a credit reporting company's investigation into an existing problem — Investigation took more than 30 days
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO. (VA)

Unbeknownst to me and my wife, in XXXX of 2019 Chase acquired my mortgage on an investment property that I own. I have been paying XXXX XXXX XXXX for the 4 years Ive owned the property. I pay extra, with auto drafts from my bank account and have never been late for this payment or any other mortgage payment over the 12 years Ive owned real estate. 

Around XX/XX/XXXX we received mail that said we are more than 30 days behind in our mortgage payments to Chase bank. We then noticed that a payment to our old bank had been refunded. We quickly called Chase and explained what happened, paid our late mortgage, current payment and got set up on auto payments to chase. Chase said everything was fine and removed our late charges. 

On XX/XX/XXXX my loan officer calls me in a panic and said my credit score has dropped 100 points ( from low 800s to low 700s ), and it will increase my interest rate by 1 % and cost me around {$82000.00} extra in interest payments. I told him it probably was related to our miscommunication with Chase when they acquired our mortgage. We are building a home and the house is mid construction. 

I immediately called Chase and explained the situation who passed me to the dispute department. I had a long conversation with a man there who took my information and submitted it. At first he said he didnt understand the problem because they removed the late payment fee. I told him I didnt care about a {$200.00} late charge, but {$82000.00} difference on my mortgage. He explained that it would most likely not be overturned because they called me several times and sent a welcome letter in XXXX. I explained I have no evidence of a letter, and asked him what number he called. It was my wifes number and they did not even have my phone number ( as the primary borrower ) on file. I asked if they left a message and they said its not Chases policy to leave messages. 

My wife receives a dozen solicitation calls a day, and if someone calls from an unrecognized number and doesnt leave a message, we know they are generally trying to sell us something. 

If the goal is to inform the borrower of the late payments to get caught up, why wouldnt they leave a message? 

Why wouldnt they call me as primary borrower? 

The complaint department called me a few days later and told me my dispute to remove the negative reporting was rejected. So I asked to speak to their manager. Explained the story. He sent me to the executive office. 

They asked us a bunch of questions to submit another review of the file. That agent explained that since we made 2 payments, the grace period between lien holder transition was not applicable. We never made the payments to chase. Our previous bank sent them, then on the third payment they stopped sending and refunded our check. The agent took every detail down, even details of our bank account showing on time drafts for the payments ( to wrong institution ) and refunding of the money. 

I thought for sure that any reasonable human would see this did not warrant negative reporting on our credit. We spoke to two different people who used the same script that said I totally understand. This happened to me as well. First time I thought they were legitimately being empathetic, but then realized after the second person said the same thing, it was a script. The credit reporting agencies are designed to indicate high risk borrowers to financial institutions. We are not high risk borrowers and this situation does now warrant that. 

After about 9 days, we received a voicemail that our request was rejected. ( Now they leave voicemails )