Consumer complaint received 2021-07-31
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — 
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY (FL)

We own a landlord business and have had many mortgages over the past half decade. We are used to lenders adjusting escrow in XXXX and having to adjust payments accordingly. However, after having had several loans sold to WELLS FARGO, we feel that there is a pattern that has emerged in the way that they take advantage of this annual event. When direct adjustments are made to the escrow, in order to maintain a constant monthly payment amount, they are often misapplied to the principle, resulting in minimal rebalancing and an ongoing cycle of " delinquent '' payments. Even when the correct amount is paid, any rolling amount that is missing results from the previous months results in continued delinquency. When an additional check is sent to correct these deficits it again applied to principle .... We are fortunate in that we are able to afford this nonsense. We can get on the phone, and after being hung up on and fed misinformation ( that we can see they have utterly wrong on their own website ), we are eventually able sort where the errors are and find some reasonable resolution. How many people can afford this terrible, ( and I think likely predatory by design ) behavior? One that results in late fees and serious damage to their credit ratings ( that is really the thing that angers us for our operation ).

Another thing we have experienced is that when one of these payments is XXXX  or XXXX  dollars short because of the rolling delinquency, it will sit for long periods ( we have personally had payments sit in " unapplied funds '' for 60 days ) without being assigned to anything ( principle, escrow or interest ). So essentially they have our money but we receive neither credit nor interest. Again, how can this be legal? Perhaps the most aggravating this for me is that this is not a business-related mortgage. This house is our homestead. I suspect that the average homeowner has no idea how one mortgage company behaves compared to another. Because of my landlord business, I have had the " pleasure '' of working with many, both when I have first drawn the mortgage and each time they have been resold. None of them stand out the way that WELLS FARGO has in their opportunistic decision making with respect to escrow-related payments ; the rolling over of " delinquent '' debts using small fractions of the payment due ; using these conditions to hold payments in their " unapplied funds '' category for extended periods ; and the-coms-are-dead approach to communication. I would add that I think the average homeowner has a risk of actually having to pay late-payment penalties in these scenarios. While we have not had to do so, it is only because we were capable of tracking 4 months of payments, assignations ( both correct and incorrect ) and forcing the bank to correct decisions it opportunistically made on our behalf. 

Last thing, the bank never contacted us by mail or email. They called. I am XXXX  most days and I don't answer my phone during bankers hours a lot of days. I don't do voice mail. They never once, in 5 months of this rolling delinquency of less than {$100.00} a month, bothered to send a letter and we never got an email at either of the authorized accounts. They just let us keep sending checks and then assigning them in the wrong places ( usually principle ). It's very hard not to feel like they want you to be in delinquency when you actually sent in enough money cumulatively over all that time, and they are the ones actually making the delinquency happen. It's aggravating for us, but for so many citizens struggling with covid and income issues, it would be a nightmare. That is the real reason I feel obligated to lodge this complaint.