Consumer complaint received 2024-03-02
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — Fees charged
Company: Shellpoint Partners, LLC (CA)

I have been attempting to resolve this directly with NewRez, LLC, the company holding my home mortgage, since XX/XX/XXXX. I have written several emails as well as messages through their online Contact Us form in my mortgage dashboard. Each time the response takes at least 30 days, though their website states they will respond within 5 to 7 business days, and the response that they send me does not allow me to reply, so I have to submit a new message from their Contact Us form. 

There are XXXX main issues : 1 ) The company NewRez, LLC that holds my home mortgage has imposed a Non-Sufficient Funds fee on my account in error. I never had a situation with non-sufficient funds. The company NewRez, LLC purchased the loan from XXXX XXXX  company last year and claims that the fee was left over from being assessed by XXXX due to my bank rejecting an attempted mortgage payment. However, the fee did not show up on my online mortgage dashboard with the previous lender, and I never had a non-sufficient funds issue. Further, the new lender seems to have completely assumed the website and contact information of the previous lender : when I try to call any of the phone numbers for the previous lender, they go to the new lender. When I try to log in to the website of the old lender to check my records, it does not let me log in. The website of the new lender is identical to that of the previous lender, except the logo is different. It basically seems that the new lender is the same as the old lender, but they just changed their website. 

I do recall a situation several years ago where the previous lender updated their software and lost my banking details, and as a result, my mortgage payment did not go through. They assessed a late fee, which I disputed because it was their fault, not mine, that the payment did not go through, and they later removed it. That fee and removed fee are shown on my account history. 

I have asked the new lender repeatedly to 1 ) remove the fee ; 2 ) if they won't remove the fee, then to provide evidence that the transaction was rejected, to prove they have grounds for the NSF fee. They have failed to provide any evidence to support the NSF fee. However, they did provide an account history, which shows the Late Fee assessment and refund described in the paragraph above. 

2 ) The lender has locked my banking information in my online portal, so when I go to make my mortgage payment online, I am unable to change my banking information. This is effectively making it very difficult or impossible for me to pay my mortgage. The funds to pay the mortgage are in a different bank account, but their website will not let me change which bank account is being used. I have repeatedly told them about this issue, and they have repeatedly responded with instructions telling me to change it while making a one-time payment on their website, but that doesn't work because it is locked on their website. I have repeatedly responded explaining this to them, and they just send the same incorrect instructions to change it while making a one-time payment, which isn't possible. I spoke to one of their customer service agents in early XXXX and she told me that they lock the bank details on the website when there are any unpaid fees, as there is in the case of this NSF fee. But, they official channels that I must contact to object are in writing, and they just keep responding with the same incorrect instructions described above.