Consumer complaint received 2024-06-18
Product: Mortgage — USDA mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — Trying to communicate with the company to fix an issue while managing or servicing your loan
Company: SERVICEMAC, LLC (LA)

Refer to XXXX dated XX/XX/year>. Here is a recap of my nightmarish experience with ServiceMac LLC ( SM ) during the pandemic : SM advised me that there was no cost to enter into the forbearance arrangement and that they were here to help. In fact, almost all of your correspondence says that but I soon found out that this was just feel-good language that you use but it had nothing to do with reality as your customers could not reach you ; if I did get thru I was told that it would be XXXX days before I could receive a callback. 

SM encouraged its customers/me to send partial payments whenever I was able. I did so for some months because I wanted to show a good faith effort on my part and also to minimize my financial burden after the forbearance period. Unfortunately for me, all SM did was XXXX up my $ XXXX partial payments ( half of my normal monthly mortgage payment ) with what appears to be largely made-up fees. 

At XXXX point, SM wrote to me saying that I had an escrow shortage due to an increase in my hazard/homeowners insurance. I asked by phone and by email for SM to apply the recent partial payment to the shortage. I always pay escrow shortages upfront, I did this XXXX  with XXXX XXXX  then XXXX XXXX. I prefer not to roll over escrow shortages into my loan to avoid interest charged on it for years to come. Your company just ignored my pleas. Finally after weeks of asking, XXXX of your reps said that it could not be done while I was in a forbearance. I kept appealing but to this day I do not know if the shortage was rolled into my loan or not. 

SM assigned to me more than a half a dozen SPOCs ( single point of contact ) during the forbearance period, a paradox in itself, none of whom I ever spoke with except XXXX. Frustrating is the nicest way that I can describe the lack of continuity and lack of follow-up or follow-through from SM. For weeks at a time, both your Customer Service and Loss Mitigation departments were completely inaccessible to me- the CUSTOMER. When I finally did get a call back or pressed until I got a warm body, your reps did NOT provide any tangible help, just more rhetoric. It became apparent that your Customer Service staff was painfully ill-equipped to handle the needs of your customers during the pandemic. 

Extremely dissatisfied with SMs lack of responses or answers, I contacted XXXX  directly for guidance since this was/is a XXXX  XXXX XXXX XXXX. A Finance & Loan Analyst there explained XXXX  possible approaches that mortgage companies were given to utilize as forbearance exit strategies for their customers. I wrote down each approach with the details as he broke them down for me, answering my questions as I asked him. Yet, when I contacted SM to review these approaches, your company told me that a team of experts reviewed my situation and came up with the best and ONLY exit strategy for me. Best for who? At that point I told your rep that I had XXXX  years as a personal finance consultant and teaching debtor education programs. I assured SM I was more than competent to be a part of that conversation and decision. The only response I got to my assertion was that if I did not sign the proposed loan modification, I could face negative consequences going forward since I could not make the lump sum payment to bring my account current. SM would not offer me an option to extend the forbearance another XXXX  months once they drafted the modification. 

Still desperate, I asked SM reps if they knew of any government programs offering help to people like me. I was hearing on the news that such programs were being implemented. SM said No but I believe you all were not forthcoming about this. This is your industry, your line of work and you dont know anything! All you wanted was the hefty profit afforded you through the greedy loan modification you devised and pressured me to sign. I wanted the financial assistance that was available to me because the funds would have brought my account completely current allowing me to get back on track, just as these programs did for so many others. Asking for assistance was rare for me. I am not the type of person who looks for hand-outs, Ive been working since I was XXXX ; I am now XXXX  years of age. 

In the end, SM did NOT abide by any of the guidelines set forth by XXXX. I advised your organization that I was NOT comfortable signing the loan modification agreement without speaking with your so-called experts who devised it- to get my questions answered and my concerns addressed. I knew right off the bat that this agreement was exploitative. 

Somehow over the next few weeks, SM could contact me more to convince me to sign this unfair loan modification. Your organization practically coerced me into signing it, knowing I did not have many options and hinting at foreclosure as a possible consequence. Unfortunately for me, I did not learn about the specifics of the federal assistance programs and the Louisiana XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX until after I signed it. This meant I no longer qualified since my mortgage account was technically no longer past due. Had I not been so overwhelmed with taking care of my senior mom at the time who was coming to the end stage of life, Im sure I would have fought this longer. I feel like I deprived my mother of some medical supplies and equipment she desperately needed, wanting to do the right thing by making partial monthly payments to SM. A decision I greatly regret in my grief. 

For SM to state that the capitalization amount in the loan modification was {$10000.00} provided good optics but the truth is the original loan maturity date on my fixed rate mortgage was XX/XX/year>. So for a forbearance period of a little more than a year, your modification extended my maturity date to XXXX of XXXX adding XXXX  months to the life of my loan and thereby increasing my mortgage debt by roughly {$52000.00}! In retrospect, it appears SM was playing a game of evasion with your customers while your Loss Mitigation team cooked up ways to considerably profit off of us who were in the middle of a crisis. Wouldnt it have been more ethical to first recoup the interest that was halted during forbearance, then tack on the months the mortgage was not paid during forbearance and charge reasonable fees for doing so? 

Not surprising, right after your big windfall, SM simply transferred/sold my mortgage to XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. The idea that mortgage lenders need liquidity to continue to lend is understandable. But the idea that mortgage servicers can easily and continually profit by packaging and selling loans, means there is absolutely no loyalty to your customers- the mortgagors, because we are a temporary to you ; no reason to provide a good customer experience because we are temporary to you. This short term arrangement almost assures that we as debtors have no means to hold ServiceMac and other mortgage companies accountable for rotten service and unscrupulous activities. However, I am making sure that the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau is watching you. 

Your company is a debt collector not a service provider and it is wrong for you to tout the untruthful message that you care and you're here to help as we are merely transient debtors to you. So spare me! 

The pandemic created unprecedented times for both companies and citizens and I took that into consideration with SM but concluded after several months of XXXX ; the name ServiceMac is seriously misleading and I will only agree that SM is a subservicing business if sub stands for below par. 



XXXX XXXX ( XXXX ) XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, LA XXXX XXXX