Consumer complaint received 2024-09-17
Product: Mortgage — FHA mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — Payment process
Company: PENNYMAC LOAN SERVICES, LLC. (MN)

Earlier in 2024, XXXX ( the company that holds my mortgage ) made updates to their website, including a new URL. I discovered in XXXX that I could not log in to my account. I would enter my username and password, then get a verification code sent to my email. This has been the process ever since XXXX acquired my mortgage years ago. However, when entering the verification code and clicking " Verify '', per the typical process, I would get taken to a page saying " Sorry, something went wrong. '' There is an automated phone payment system that is quite convoluted and, when attempting this, the only option I was finding was to pay with a card an incur an additional fee. There is no fee when I pay online via my checking account, and so I was not okay with being forced to incur that fee due to what seemed to be a technical error on their end regarding their site. My desire at that point, in lieu of paying online like I was accustomed to, was to get in touch with a human being over the phone and have them make the payment for me. However, it proved very difficult to get in touch with a living person. 

Multiple attempts over multiple days later, I finally managed to get a hold of someone but by then the payment for XXXX was late and a fee had been incurred. That person was able to put the payment through but refused to waive the late fee. I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and sometime in XXXX I received a response saying that they would waive the late fee. However, issues with logging into the website persisted. The only troubleshooting advice I received in XXXX was to clear my browser 's cache and refresh. This did not solve the problem. 

As I feared it would, this ongoing issue led to more missed payments. My XXXX payment went unpaid throughout the month and I discovered a " 30 Days Late '' mark on my credit monitoring account as a result, having a significant negative impact on my score. 

Their automated system makes it extremely difficult to even elect an option to talk with a human, and once you do, you wait for an excessive amount of time. Time that most people, including me, don't have to wait on hold. 

Today, XX/XX/XXXX, I was lucky enough to get in touch with someone and take care of the XXXX and XXXX payments, and this person also agreed to waive the late fees. However, they could not do anything about the derogatory credit reporting. They told me to file an escalation through the website ( that is, if their troubleshooting advice works and I am able to log in ) or send a written notice via traditional mail. 

As for their troubleshooting advice, they sent me a text asking me to verify the last XXXX digits of my SSN. They sent an email prompting me for the same thing. I didn't/still don't understand what relevance this has to the login issue, but they insisted I do it and then refresh the webpage on my desktop. I did the text verification, but the email verification page is unresponsive. I entered the digits and clicked XXXX, and nothing happened. So, this amounts to more ineffective troubleshooting. 

I intend to file that escalation asking PennyMac to remove the negative reporting, but I feel I still need to file a formal complaint to increase pressure on XXXX to do better. There XXXX be some solution I'm overlooking, but I shouldn't need to be an IT expert just to pay my mortgage. And when it is as hard as it is to get in touch with a human to help with technical support or even just make a payment without a credit card fee, I find it unacceptable that the issue has persisted for so long and what has amounted to significant ramifications, most notably the significant negative impact to my credit.