Consumer complaint received 2024-06-24
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — Escrow, taxes, or insurance
Company: Freedom Mortgage Company (CA)

The current holder of our home mortgage ( Freedom Mortgage ) wrongly added an escrow account to our loan even after providing them with the required information. Multiple times, agents agreed they made a mistake and promised to fix the issue. Yet seven months later, the issue remains. Since this is an online lender, we can not visit them in person to resolve the problem, and everyone we speak with either on the phone or over their email system promises to fix it, only for it to remain an issue. They've wrongly added this account and caused us, the consumer, to double-insure the property for seven months. 

Here is the timeline of the issue : XX/XX/XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ( who had insured the property for over 15 years ) informed us that they would not renew our insurance policy for XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX, CA XXXX stating, " Even if it is currently being insured by XXXX XXXX, we can not do any rewrite/conversion applications. '' XX/XX/XXXX- We established a new policy for the XXXX property with XXXX and, informed XXXX XXXX, and provided them with " Evidence of Property Insurance '' from XXXX. ( Attached ) XXXX / XX/XX/XXXX- We received a letter from the current holder of our mortgage ( Freedom Mortgage ) requesting proof of insurance be submitted to ExpressInsuranceInfo.com. 

XX/XX/XXXX - Proof of XXXX Insurance Policy ( Attached ) was submitted to the website per the instructions. Upon successful upload, a confirmation page was displayed saying, " Successful Save - Your insurance data was saved. If there are any difficulites processing your insurance data you will receive an email message at XXXX '' ( attached ) At this point, based on all the information, we'd complied with their request. 

In early XXXX, we noticed an Escrow account had been added to our mortgage, and my wife ( XXXX XXXX XXXX attempted to contact Freedom Mortage because of the mistake. She contacted them via their Customer Care : XXXX. The person my wife spoke to wasn't helpful and refused to help out, which is when I got involved. 

XX/XX/XXXX - I logged into our Freedom Mortgage account and submitted two email messages ( attached ) through their messaging system. They outlined the mistake and provided copies of proof of successfully uploading their requested date back in XXXX and the evidence of insurance. 

XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX responded back, saying, " We received your insurance policy and have successfully updated our records. Additionally, your request to waive/remove the escrow account has been forwarded to the Escrow Department XXXX XXXX ( Attached ) XX/XX/XXXX - After returning from a trip, we discovered a letter had been mailed on XX/XX/XXXX stating the " Escrow waiver had been revoked '' with no specific information but a list of possible reasons. At this point, I did two things. I first logged back in and sent another message to the team regarding the issue. Once again, I provided all the details. Additionally, I picked up the phone. I contacted their Customer Care department and was transferred around five times before reaching an agent with the ID of XXXX, who reviewed all the information submitted online and seemingly understood the issue. She said she'd take care of it, and on XX/XX/XXXX, the Escrow would be removed from the account, and we'd be credited back the money that was mistakenly used for the escrow account. The total length of my call that day was 42 minutes. 

XX/XX/XXXX - They responded to my online message with, " ... your information has been forwarded to the Escrow Department for further review and response. '' ( Attached ) XX/XX/XXXX- We recieved our latest mortgage statement and are shocked to see the escorw account that was promised to be moved by XX/XX/XXXX was still showing up on the account. 

XX/XX/XXXX - I sent another message ( attached ) via their online messaging system saying that we've been told a number of times this issue was resolved, and yet it is still showing up on our statement. Asking for someone higher up that I could speak with that could resolve the issue. 

XX/XX/XXXX - They responded, " Please note additional research is required, and we are working diligently to respond to your concern. '' ( Attached ) XX/XX/XXXX - They responded, " ... We are unable to remove that escrow account. '' ( Attached ) XX/XX/XXXX - I sent another online message pointing out yet again that we provided everything to them and had multiple people agree this was their mistake and that they said they'd take care of it. I again ask, " Who is the appropriate contact to address this issue? '' ( Attached ) XX/XX/XXXX - We contacted a loan expert who we've worked with in the past that put us in contact with a lawyer who deals with real estate law and consumer protections. 

XX/XX/XXXX- Freedom Mortgage again responded online, " Please be advised that the request to wave/remove has been denied... '' ( Attached ) XX/XX/XXXX - Spoke with our lawyer about the unfair practices of this lender, our lack of a physical location to visit to address the issue, the hours spent trying to resolve it, and being told many times it would be taken care of only to find it out back to where we've started. WE DIDN'T PICK this lender, this lender bought our loan from another company. We're stuck trying to resolve an issue that has our property double-insured for the last seven months. It's not right and we need it corrected ASAP.