Consumer complaint received 2023-03-17
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — 
Company: SCHOOLSFIRST FEDERAL CREDIT UNION (CA)

I am writing this complaint against SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union and it's Loss Mitigation Department in response to their abusive and negligent loan servicing practices. Despite the length of this complaint, it is by no means a comprehensive accounting of my experience and I am willing to elaborate and/or provide additional documentation if requested.

After falling behind on my mortgage due to a COVID related hardship, I was contacted by a representative from SchoolsFirst who recommended enrolling into their COVID-19 Forbearance program. I was initially hesitant at the idea of a lump sum payment, but agreed after being reassured that I would have multiple options upon conclusion of the forbearance such as a forbearance extension, reduced monthly payments via a loan modification, as well as a deferral. Prior to this hardship I had maintained over 200 consecutive mortgage payments that spanned 12 years of owning one home and six years of owning two homes. Having never been in this sort of situation before, I felt that I could trust SchoolsFirst and appreciated their offer of a reprieve. 

As my forbearance was drawing to a close, SchoolsFirst once again reached out to me to discuss my options. I remember this call vividly because it was such an unusual occurrence for them to contact me through my work number. We discussed my intention to remain in forbearance for the full year with an expected start payment date of XXXX XXXX XXXX, as well as the plan to defer the past due amount. Upon the conclusion of the extended forbearance I resumed making my regular monthly payment. After encountering an issue with making the payment in the third month, I called SchoolsFirst and was informed that my payment had been refused because I had a past due balance of over XXXX XXXX  dollars, which was due in full. I recalled the plan that we had discussed in the fall of XXXX  at which point SchoolsFirst informed me that a deferral was not something that was granted automatically as the forbearance had been, and that I needed to process the paperwork. Although I was alarmed to learn that the suspended payments had not been deferred like I'd been led to believe, I was told not to worry because they would work with me to restructure any arrearage once I'd submitted my application.

It then took several weeks for their application packet to arrive in the mail in spite of their claims that they had already sent it out multiple times. The weeks evolved into months (and eventually years) of an endless cycle of my application being denied any sort of consideration, and returned to me as "incomplete". Reasons for being deemed "incomplete" included but were not limited to: Document not received (even though I had confirmations of receipt),  expired documents required resubmittal (among them documents with no expiration date and documents that had not expired, such as a w-2 form in XXXX), document missing a signature (it was not) (see attachment 1), incorrect form entirely (even though they were the ones who had provided the form to me in the first place), and the list goes on. I was repeatedly required to submit documentation that I'd already resubmitted multiple times. On more than one occasion they claimed they hadn't received the required "missing" documentation in time, closing out my application, and forcing me to start the application process all over again.  At the same time I was also inundated with a barrage of (what I would describe in retrospect as) XXXX  from SchoolsFirst which appeared to not be written with any context whatsoever, as they would request that I submit an entirely new application from scratch (along with requesting the exact same information and documentation all over again), as if that had been our very first and only communication thus far. These letters would also ignore any of the phone call transactions I'd had with them during that time. This all served to further confound my understanding of where I was at in the process, and what was being asked of me, thus hindering my ability to jump through their absurd hoops. 

According to SchoolsFirst, they are the owner, assignee, and servicer of my loan. Despite the fact that SchoolsFirst provides services exclusively to California, they contract with a New Jersey-based third party subservicer. SchoolsFirst uses this distance as an excuse for the delay in sending and receiving time-sensitive mail. It would often take several weeks for them to notify me in writing of whatever new barrier existed now. Considering today's technology, their decision to utilize antiquated methods of communication like this speaks volumes. This is all undoubtedly by design, as it had originally taken only one phone call with an incomplete application for SchoolsFirst to agree to "assist" me with a forbearance in the first place. And of course when I initially applied for the loan, and when I opened a Home Equity Line of Credit on my home I was immediately notified through a Single Point of Contact via direct phone call and/or email- of exactly what was missing and exactly what they still needed, even going so far as to meet me in person to retrieve these documents. Naturally the severity of my delinquency, my perceived creditworthiness, and the fate of my home (my most valuable asset and investment to date), have been held as a hostage along a timeline that SchoolsFirst has moved forward only to their benefit and at their leisure. 

I had eventually begun calling Loss Mitigation almost daily, sometimes multiple times throughout the day just to check on the status of my application. I learned to take every conversation with a grain of salt, as the sheer volume and scope of the downright lies, misinformation, and misrepresentations I've been provided from one representative to the next has been truly inconceivable. Among the representatives I have spoken to I have been: yelled at, hung up on, lied to, told that there is simply nothing that they can do to help me and to just "sit tight", spoken to in a condescending manner, left on hold for an obscene amount of time often just to be hung up on anyway, and my personal favorite- being hung up on and (when I called back) finding out my file had been notated as a "Spanish-Speaker only". Information I have been given has varied between unhelpful, incorrect, inconsistent, and illegal. For example, one of the more innocuous lies I'd been told was that my actual lender was XXXX XXXX. According to XXXX XXXX and SchoolsFirst, it is not. 

Even when these agents were competent enough to understand the issue at hand, or considerate enough to pretend like they cared, there was still no point in talking to them because they did not have any decision making authority. They had no ability to rectify errors, and they could not (or would not) transfer you to anyone who did. On more than one occasion I requested to be provided a Single Point of Contact under the California Homeowner Bill Of Rights. In response I was either outright refused, ignored, or told that they were simply unable to transfer me. During one phone call in particular I spoke with a lady who specifically introduced herself as my Single Point of Contact. When I requested to be transferred to her in a subsequent phone call, I was told that I could not be transferred, and I have never heard from that woman again. 

In fact, there was no escalation process. Their scam is to hide behind a seemingly incompetent and undertrained call center that is ultimately incapable of providing accurate information, and incapable of providing any actual assistance to distressed homeowners. I've had to take off what's amounted to weeks from work in an attempt to find a resolution on this matter (being restricted to east coast business hours while living in a west coast time zone has made this all the more difficult). A review of two months of cell phone bills showed that I had called in 27 times and spent 343 minutes on the phone in that span alone. And yet my time has just been wasted away while on the phone for hours, with no resolution in sight. 

For a while I could not even figure out who my servicer was because that answer varies depending on who you ask or which documents you're looking at. The information is obfuscated by the fact that SchoolsFirst misleads their borrowers by referring to their third party subservicer as simply their "Loss Mitigation Department". It took some time (over two years) and some serious investigating just for me to even figure out that I was dealing with two entirely different businesses because both businesses claim only one name. I have only ever received mail from "SchoolsFirst" and never "XXXX" even when the letter has indeed been sent by XXXX. XXXX  employees specifically introduce themselves as SchoolsFirst employees (despite the fact that their company exists on the opposite side of the country). Its not just via telephone conversations; they do this on legal documents as well. The woman who filed the Substitution Of Trustee appointing XXXX XXXX XXXX as the new trustee for my loan- swore to a notary in Missouri that she was the "Vice President Document Execution" for "SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union". Yet this same woman represented herself with the exact same title in the Notice of Default that was recorded in my county in California, but instead working for "XXXX XXXX, servicer for SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union (see attachments 2 and 3). Another person I spoke with refused to even confirm whether he worked for XXXX  or SchoolsFirst. They would not confirm which company they worked for, and yet SchoolsFirst both gives free access to and forces me to furnish private and confidential information to every random work-from-home low level call center employee who picks up the call, just to get information on my own loan. Their misrepresentations have made it nearly impossible to know who it is I should be in contact with and who it is that I have been in contact with. 

Their fraudulent and obscured identity has also made it easier for SchoolsFirst to provide varying degrees of conflicting information, and nobody to be held accountable. One example of this was on one occasion in particular I had called Loss Mitigation while at my wits end, wanting answers to a myriad of questions, and during this conversation I received the following information (information in italics) which contradicted the information I had been given previously: The forbearance I had been granted had been a "regular" forbearance. I had not been granted a "COVID forbearance" because my "hardship did not qualify.". (Prior to this I had no idea that there was more than one type, I've since been told that there isn't, and I'm still not sure where the truth is in either of those statements. None of the CARES act had applied to me because my loan was/is not federally backed, and therefore my loan had not been protected under any state or federal guidelines. Learning that I did not have a federally backed loan was both shocking and infuriating as this was in direct conflict with what I had been previously told by another agent and with what SchoolsFirst had communicated in writing. These communications were therefore intentionally misleading, as they had made it very clear to me at the time that I did in fact have a federally backed loan (see attachments 4,5 and 6). It was during this conversation that I was informed for the first time that the forbearance I had entered into had only been for a total of 3 months (XXXX XXXX and XXXX of XXXX), not for the year as we had discussed. According to their records, the phone call I had with Loss Mitigation in which I extended the forbearance never happened. While I am unable to retrieve my employer's phone records from nearly 3 years ago, I have attached the loan statement that had been prepared in the month following what would have been the end of the forbearance that clearly stated You accepted a forbearance. (see attachment 7). After being confronted with this shocking disregard for any truth, I requested an investigation into the recordings of my conversations. I was initially told that they do not keep recordings. I've since been told that they only keep up to six months worth of recordings. These conversations took place two and a half years ago.

I was recently provided a copy of the Loan Activity correspondence between Loss Mitigation and I. I've attached a few of those excerpts to this complaint (See attachments 8, 18, and 31). It serves as a window, but it is not complete. This is because the "complete" report omits information, and omits entire conversations such as the one in which I extended the forbearance (as well as others that can be substantiated through my cell phone records). For example, it logs numerous attempts to call me often followed by "customer hung up", but omits that when these calls actually did occur, they were in fact robocalls that did not lead to a live person, but instead an automated message informing me to call SchoolsFirst. Each time I would return the call, the agent would have no idea why I'd been told to call. There were several instances upon which I would receive this notice mere minutes before the close of business, which left me no time to call back even if I'd wanted to. I thought this was a particularly cruel sort of call to receive, as I was already being held captive in a desperate and indefinite state of worry and XXXX  over my home. The notes also log their attempts to contact me via email, but they omit how I cannot view whatever was written in that email because my "account status" prevents it. There are also several notations on there that are very clearly not related to me. For example on XXXX "POSTDATED CHECK.. TAD XXXX MADE PMNT XXXX DATED FOR FRIDAY XXXX RFD LOSS OF EMPLOYMENT THANK YOU FOR CALLING BCU. THANK YOU FOR YOUR MEMBERSHIP" (see attachment 8). I do not own checks; its XXXX  for Gods sake. I have never owed nor paid specifically XXXX to SchoolsFirst, I have never even heard of XXXX, and I have never  been let go from my place of employment. While this meticulous record keeping has nothing to do with me, perhaps they should find and review the notes of the person who wrote that post dated check (if they even exist) to see if my notes are with theirs.

On XXXX XXXX XXXX, over a year after I had exited the forbearance, I finally received a letter from SchoolsFirst which stated, "A review on XXXX determined the application is complete and no further information is needed at this timeWe will not initiate any foreclosure actions or proceedings by sending first notice or filing first legal documents until your complete assistance package has been evaluated." (see attachment 9). The following day, like a sick joke, I received another letter from SchoolsFirst which stated "Please be informed your mortgage loan has been referred for foreclosure proceedings. We did not receive a response to the previous letters we sent regarding foreclosure prevention alternatives, but if you are still interested, it is not too late" (see attachment 10). I received two additional letters dated XXXX XXXX XXXX from XXXX XXXX XXXX informing me that a Notice of Default had been recorded against my property. In response I sent three separate Qualified Written Requests via certified mail in which I contested the Notice of Default and requested an itemized statement, but those letters have never been acknowledged (see Attachment 11). The Notice of Default specifically indicated "XXXX XXXX XXXX" as "the date contact with the borrower was accomplished pursuant to Civil Code Section XXXX". However, according to the loan activity notes as provided by Loss Mitigation,  no such contact ever occurred on that date.

Immediately leading up to the filing of the Notice of Default my application had been refused for months as SchoolsFirst kept refusing my application and repeatedly asking me to submit a "signed financial form". This was several months of me calling back in a perpetual state of confusion and having them look through my application to verify that it was: a.Received b.The correct form and c.Not missing a signature. This would be followed up with receiving yet another letter from SchoolsFirst informing me to submit a "signed financial form". They finally let me know months later that I had been submitting the wrong form the entire time because they had sent the wrong form to me. I've attached one of my latter responses to SchoolsFirst that directly addressed this (attachment 1). Coincidentally, this had lasted right up until they had filed the Notice of Default. 

Soon after, SchoolsFirst resumed their "missing documents game. Their new document request was originally posted with such a vague description that I was forced to call Loss Mitigation in an attempt to get clarification on what was even being asked of me. Loss Mitigation's original interpretation of the request was wrong of course, which prolonged the delay even further. Even after I had successfully submitted the requested document, SchoolsFirst continued to refuse acceptance of the document for weeks. Attached is my 3rd submission to them regarding this (see attachment 12). Despite the multi-colored map I drew outlining how this document was indeed what they asked for, it was also rejected.

In spite of my tireless efforts to meet their demands and in spite of their promises to work with me, on XXXX XXXX  my request for assistance was denied. The three programs I was considered for were  FORBEARANCE PLAN, REPAYMENT PLAN  and  LOAN MODIFICATION. I was denied a forbearance because my hardship reason does not meet program guidelines. The repayment plan was denied because after they reviewed my financial information, it was determined that your income is insufficient to qualify for any foreclosure alternative programs at this time. And lastly I was denied a loan modification because after reviewing my housing expense to income ratio we determined that it does not meet the requirement for a loan modification (see attachment 13). Using my "housing expense to income ratio" to deny assistance is a highly self-seeking decision for a lender to make after playing a significant role in shredding the figure before evaluating it. My income is also XXXX higher now than it was when I originally qualified to both refinance and open a HELOC in XXXX. It is approximately XXXX higher now than it was when they approved a forbearance in XXXX. But now my income is no longer a "sufficient amount"? More importantly, a deferment was not even included among the list of loss mitigation options I was considered for despite my request in my application and repeated assurances from SchoolsFirst. Attachment 14 is just one of many emails Ive sent to SchoolsFirst about a deferral and attachment 15 is a screenshot from SchoolsFirst's website that unequivocally states that you can defer payments after the forbearance period. Denied any assistance, my only option now was to pay the full amount in one lump sum.

Taking a comprehensive accounting of my loan has been a nearly impossible task since I do not have access to my full mortgage payment history. I am no longer sent monthly paper statements, and my website access and app access to all past and current statements have been blocked by SchoolsFirst due to my "account status" (see attachment 16). SchoolsFirst states that you can have 24/7 access to your loan and updates regarding your loss mitigation requests online at loansolutioncenter.com. That is yet another lie (see attachment 16). Whatever numbers I have been able to retrieve are extremely unclear and inconsistent. Lack of access and equivocal information is problematic since throughout this time I have had the financial ability to resume my monthly payment, and I have made multiple attempts to make those payments. Despite these attempts, my payment history appears hit-or-miss as SchoolsFirst has either accepted or refused my payments at-random. There were several months where I was prohibited from making a payment because I was told that it was considered a "partial payment" and they would "not accept anything less than the full amount of the delinquency". One representative stated that they would not accept the payment because "it was not going to cure the delinquency". Of course neither were my interest-only HELOC payments (that were secured by the same collateral), and they've had no problem regularly removing that payment from my account every month.

When my payments were accepted, I breathed a sigh of relief and did not realize at the time that I should scrutinize where my payments were going after I'd been provided confirmation of receipt. So when I went through my escrow transactions, one of the few things related to my mortgage that I still have unrestricted access to (see attachment 17), I was shocked and confused at how irregular my payments had been applied and whether or not they even had. I compared the escrow transactions to the loan statements I had and noticed that several payments were misapplied, not applied when received, or not applied at all. Several of my payments did not move forward my delinquency date, making it appear as though I am even further behind than I actually am. Monthly late fees and "property preservation" fees have accumulated regardless of whether or not I'd made a payment (see attachment 19). On several instances, Schools First refused payment until the payment was past due, which resulted in assessing frivolous late fees (see attachments 18 and 19). Some months my payments were even shown as being accepted but then "refunded", subsequently accruing more late fees. In reality those "refunded" payments were never actually reimbursed to my account. I went through and compared every bank statement from the past two years and noticed that there were several instances where I had received emails indicating to me that my payment had been accepted, in spite of whether or not that was even true. In XXXX XXXX for example, I received three separate emails from SchoolsFirst that thanked me for making three individual mortgage payments. Despite having not authorized all three of these payments, my bank account at the time indicated that my account had been debited for them. These payments are still shown on my loan statements and escrow transactions, yet not one of those payments were ever applied towards reducing the loan, and the withdrawals from my bank account are no longer reflected in the transaction history. Meanwhile, an XXXX XXXX mortgage statement indicated that a full periodic payment was fully applied to my negative escrow balance. Yet according to my bank statements, no such amount ever even left my bank account at that time! In fact my bank statements show several mortgage payments which resulted in an actual decrease of my total available account balance, but my loan statements do not accurately account for each of those payments. The money in my  "Unapplied Funds" account seems to appear out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly. I've recently found the most success in being allowed to make a payment by going into an actual branch, and I recently discovered that they would print my past statements for me at my request. Yet even when paying inside of an actual branch, my payments are still not accounted for appropriately nor are they applied upon receipt, and the transactions do not make any sense even to SchoolsFirst! The manager at the nearest SchoolsFirst branch can't explain any of this. I know because I have sat down with her and she has tried. In addition to this, I have also attempted to address the discrepancies with them in detail via telephone and email, and the issue continues to be either ignored or dismissed (See attachments 20 and 21). The most recent time I brought this up, I was told that Loss Mitigation had attempted to call me three times on one particular day (along with leaving a message for me). According to my cell phone records, this is simply not true. 

As a result of this apparent book cooking, Ive made several attempts to request an itemized accounting of my loan and a full payment history beginning with the date of delinquency. In addition to the previously mentioned ignored Qualified Written Requests, I also attempted to contact the lawyer/trustee that had been assigned to my loan. Their phone number led to an automated recording which instructed me to contact them via email. I attempted to email and was charged XXXX for an emailed response of a payoff statement that was neither itemized, nor accurate, in spite of that being the specific point of my request (see attachments 22 and 23) However that statement stated "For itemization please call XXXX. So I did this, and I was connected to an automated recording stating that Id reached XXXX XXXX XXXX, although I do not bank there nor hold a loan with that credit union. The man who answered claimed to be from "Schools Credit Union", claimed to have never heard of XXXX XXXX XXXX, and had no idea what I meant when I asked for a simple itemization. The man had the audacity to ask me if I was calling the correct number and ultimately stated that he would forward the request to the attorney assigned to my loan. I was then charged another XXXX to be sent another emailed statement that was again neither itemized nor accurate, and like the statement before, it said "For itemization please call XXXX" (See attachment 24). 

By letter and by email I've submitted a Request To Know under the California Consumer Privacy Act, and in response they denied my inquiry for my own personal information and they stated that they were unwilling to complete my request. SchoolsFirst simply refuses to provide accurate and timely information regarding my loan or anything at all for that matter! Whether it's regarding my own personal information, or the total amount I owe, to who actually owns and/or services my loan, to when exactly (and if) my home has a sale date, or who to contact regarding any of this information. One payoff statement I received directed me to send payment to XXXX XXXX. XXXX XXXX XXXX (See attachment 25), so even who to pay is questionable! My purported monthly mortgage payment changes from one document to the next as well. The amount that they provided to the IRS on my 1098 was a different amount than the one shown on my loan statements. So they do not report accurate information to the IRS (in addition to the wrong mortgage payment on two 1098s, they also reported inaccurate amounts regarding what I have paid to them and what they have refunded to me). In XXXX  and XXXX  they reported that they had paid out money from my escrow in order to refund several of my periodic payments. While I did receive those checks, I did not cash them. However that money was still reported as being removed from my escrow account. I had asked to have those checks reissued and instead, according to my loan statements, it appears as though that money was applied towards my loan, (where it was sent by me in the first place several months prior). I can only assume that this is what happened since according to my loan statements- money was applied to my loan, and it was money that did not come from out of my bank account at the time. I was told however, that the checks "were reissued" to me. I never received a reissue of these checks. 

They also do not report accurate information to any of the credit bureaus. Their incorrect reporting played a significant role in the status of my alleged past due balance and the debt to income ratio that SchoolsFirst used to justify their determination to deny my request for a loan modification. Specifically, their denial letter stated "The consumer reporting agency contacted that provided information that influenced our decision in whole or in part was XXXX XXXX." So I requested the report from that agency and according to that report, my loan has had no payments made since XXXX  of XXXX, (see attachment 26) despite the fact that I have made more than 15 payments since then according to my escrow balance sheet (see attachment 17 highlights).

Shortly after receiving the denial letter, I had gotten into contact with  a "Loss Mitigation Specialist" from the Real Estate Servicing Department, after emailing and then calling their department in a desperate attempt to find anybody willing to help me. I attempted to explain everything that had led up to this point, and was initially hopeful and relieved to not have to continue communicating with SchoolsFirst's unhelpful call center. I was encouraged to submit an appeal to the denial, and to "trust the process". I did so, and on XXXX XXXX I learned I'd been approved for a repayment plan. Fortunately by now I'd had the wherewithal to know better than to rely on their mailed correspondence, and only through my own relentless calling was I able to retrieve this information in a timely manner. Left to SchoolsFirst's mailings, I received the letter with the details of this repayment plan on XXXX XXXX, two days after I was required to communicate my intent, and a full day after I was expected to have made a down payment of an amount that wasnt even possible for me to make.

The plan was scheduled to begin on XXXX XXXX and the first payment required was a down-payment of XXXX (see attachment 27), just shy of 17 months worth of payments. On top of this, the repayment plan indicated that my mortgage payment would nearly double for the next two years. While I have a sizable down payment saved because of the gaps in time where they refused to take my payments, XXXX  was an amount they knew I would not have even if I had completely cleared out every cent I had. SchoolsFirst knew precisely what I had and did not have, after I had been forced to send in multiple applications, Financial Forms, bank statements, paystubs, tax returns, w-2s, mortgage statements, hardship letters, letters of employment, and even my divorce decree. Not to mention I had also discussed all of this again with my contact in the Real Estate Department as she easily reviewed my accounts from her side seeing as how my lender is also my bank.

Even if I could've somehow procured XXXX in that short amount of time (they couldn't even deliver their letter requesting the payment within the amount of time they were expecting me to furnish that amount!), they were asking me to completely drain everything I had in my checking and savings combined, and then hike up my total mortgage payment to nearly 60% of my take home pay- to repay an amount that was more than what I ever even owed to them! The "total amount due" in the repayment plan once again was not accurate, nor was it consistent with itself or any other document. It stated that the total past due amount was XXXX, yet when I did the math the total amount it had me paying back throughout the life of the repayment plan was XXXX. Why would I have to pay back a different number than the indicated "total past due amount"? If what I owe is actually XXXX, why wouldn't it just state that number instead? (see attachment 27) Meanwhile the loan statement for that month stated the total past due amount was XXXX  with a XXXX amount due, and the reinstatement document I received stated the total to reinstate was both XXXX and XXXX! (See attachment 28). 

The repayment plan indicated that I had the option to either accept or refuse these terms by XXXX XXXX  (see attachment 29) or appeal one final time by XXXX XXXX (see attachment 30). I called and spoke with an agent to discuss and confirm my right to appeal (see attachment 31). Not one to be