Consumer complaint received 2024-07-02
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — Escrow, taxes, or insurance
Company: Shellpoint Partners, LLC (CA)

In late XXXX XXXX of XXXX, this lender almost made me fall out of escrow during the purchase of a second primary residence by misapplying payments, fraudulently charging late fees, and failing to follow up on promised remediation during phone calls. It took hours to get the entire ordeal straightened out. 

In XXXX of XXXX, they decided that I didn't have flood insurance despite them requiring that I buy flood insurance as a necessity for the closing of escrow. On XX/XX/XXXX they made payment to my flood insurance provider for {$760.00}. Less than a week later, they sent one letter to a home I hadn't lived at for a year and a half ( despite having my updated address on file ) demanding that I send them proof of flood insurance. I did not receive this letter, obviously. On XX/XX/XXXX, they debited my escrow account for {$470.00} for money they supposedly paid for flood insurance and then they began charging my escrow account {$230.00} monthly for lender-placed flood insurance despite that THEY WERE THE ONES WHO'D PAID THE YEARLY PREMIUM FOR FLOOD INSURANCE DIRECTLY TO THE INSURANCE COMPANY before they began charging me monthly. 

I realized what was going on earlier in XXXX, and had to spend literal HOURS on the phone sorting out the situation, emailing proof of my flood insurance ( which, again, THEY had paid ), and making phone calls. My 3rd to most recent phone call was made on XX/XX/XXXX where I asked the customer service person why my payment was still showing as so high despite that THEY had messed up with placing flood insurance and he assured me it would be readjusted once the escrow analysis was re-done ( despite that I was promised it would have been re-done by then ). According to the 2nd customer service person I spoke with today, when the escrow department looked at my account after the XX/XX/XXXX phone call, they decided that I didn't need an escrow analysis done because there hadn't been any change to my insurance nor taxes. 

As of today, my monthly escrow payment at this point is still over {$1400.00} despite that the monthly cost of my taxes and insurance is {$860.00} ; I called YET AGAIN today and the 1st customer service person I spoke with said that she didn't know why my escrow analysis wasn't re-done after one of the MANY times I'd called before to complain and why it wasn't done proactively once my refund of {$1400.00} was processed back in XXXX. I called a second time today to get more clarity and that's when I was told that no escrow analysis was done a ) after the lender-placed flood insurance mess-up was discovered b ) after the escrow account was refunded nor c ) after I called and spent an hour on the phone on XX/XX/XXXX and specifically asked that it be done because I knew there was no way a payment of over {$1400.00} was appropriate. Even more fun, the person I spoke with on my second call today informed me that LENDER PLACED FLOOD INSURANCE IS STILL ACTIVE ON MY ACCOUNT. 

This company is weaponizing incompetence and/or they are fraudulently adding insurance charges on their clients ' accounts hoping that, like I did, people miss the charges and they can keep the money. Their complete buffoonery from the debacle of early XXXX which almost caused me to fall out of escrow was another insanely frustrating situation which cost MANY hours of my time and around {$300.00} for my real estate attorney to figure out exactly where/when/how they'd dropped the ball. THIS situation has also cost me MANY hours of my time and the fact that there is zero follow up on their behalf no matter how stupidly they bungled a situation ( charging your clients for flood insurance a week after YOU paid their flood insurance?? ) proves that their MO is to overcharge and/or fraudulently charge their clients for insurance and late fees and then purposely not fix problems hoping their clients give up, thus winning them a war of attrition.