Consumer complaint received 2024-05-02
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — Escrow, taxes, or insurance
Company: RoundPoint Mortgage Servicing LLC (NY)

Re : Escrow shortages Roundpoint Mortgage Servicing Company After an investigation in late XXXX we finally found out what was going on with our large escrow shortage and how it came about. My wife who is also on this account as an authorized party, attempted to call Roundpoint in early XXXX of XXXX to ask why there was a persistent fee on the account and why we had an escrow shortage. Unfortunately, she got someone who wasnt able to answer her questions. Instead she was left on hold for XXXX minutes after asking for a supervisor and the call was eventually disconnected, so we never obtained answers late last summer. 
She had noticed to her disbelief that it was showing on the bottom of the second or third page of an escrow analysis statement dated XX/XX/XXXX that we were short {$2800.00}! We didn't open the letter or look at it for quite some time, thinking it was just a regular statement and we had been paying our bill their online site. It was a while that we opened it and even noticed the amount at all, due to the odd way it was displayed on the documents. We didn't notice it until well into the summer of XXXX shortly before she made that call. 
Last week, she got around to calling again and after battling XXXX representatives to finally get a supervisor, we learned to our dismay that we do have a large escrow shortage of {$2900.00}. My wife spent at least a brisk XXXX minutes on the line with the supervisor asking detailed questions in regard to the revolving fee that had been on our statement and the escrow shortage. This is when we learned of the amount mentioned above. 
We could not even believe what we were hearing. First of all, when we went into this forbearance a few months after the start of the Pandemic, in XXXX of XXXX, we were never informed that when we come off, we were going to have to do a loan modification. How or why would we have even known that? That in itself turned into a total nightmare with us battling this company for over XXXX months before we went back to paying. That in itself is what caused the big escrow shortage of over XXXX we originally had to deal with when we came off. 
Then, to our shock, they tried to raise our interest rate. If we would have even known it was even a remote possibility of that happening, we never, ever would have gone into the forbearance in the first place. We were struggling a bit but not to the point that we wanted to lose our amazingly low interest rate! They didn't tell us this either. Why? 
At the time we had a fantastic interest rate of under XXXX %. Like many, I am sure, we had refinanced in XXXX in order to take advantage of the very low rates at the time. Why would anyone risk that? 
We took advantage of the forbearance at the time because I had been laid off in XXXX of XXXX for over XXXX months and then only a little over a year later, had to take a temporary cut in salary when the Pandemic hit for several months. This caused us to get backed up on bills as we were forced to take out a couple of very small, modest loans to help us pay our mortgage and major bills in the beginning of XXXX with the layoff. 
My wife questioned the representative at Roundpoint at the time thoroughly, in XXXX of XXXX before we did this. She even took notes and had a first name which was XXXX. She strongly expressed how concerned we were over encountering an escrow shortage etc., and especially what was going to happen to all of these payments we were not making when all was said and done. He explained that it would be put at the end of the loan. He certainly never mentioned wed be facing a modification where we would possibly lose our interest rate! Of course, we would never have done the forbearance or if we did, it would have just been for XXXX to XXXX months at the most, just to help us get on our feet. 
It wasnt a wise move, and we regret it as it set us back in our mortgage considerably. We ended up having to tack on an additional {$9900.00} to the end of the loan in XXXX of XXXX from escrow shortages alone. That was a huge amount, triple what we are facing now, for the year and a half we were on the forbearance and we are still not sure why it was so much. 
Now we learn that from XXXX of XXXX, to XXXX of XXXX we accrued an additional {$2800.00} which we were notified of in XXXX of XXXX when they did the escrow analysis. It is now climbing to an amount over {$2.00}, XXXX. 
We were never informed that this was going to happen. In spite of my wife speaking with several inviduals both before and when we were ready to come back to paying, we were never informed that we would not have any type of cushion set up for us when doing a modification. We were never informed by anyone that with the modification, we would go into this cold, never being able to have enough to pay our insurance and taxes when this modification was finalized and we went back to paying. 
First, we had the battle over the actual modification which were were never informed that wed even have to do. That took at least XXXX months to resolve, as mentioned, with all kinds of complaints flying back and forth between the XXXX and the CFPB with this company until they finally agreed to put us back under our original interest rate. They tried to actually take it away from us!! 
If we didnt fight that and actually agreed to the higher rate, that in itself could have caused us to lose our home! As a result of this battle, we could have and should have went back to paying a lot sooner and now, the discovery that we owe, to date, almost XXXX in escrow shortage! Our payment went up of course, an extra {$56.00} per month and although that sounds manageable, we still owe the almost XXXX. My wife was informed that we are going to just go down the same path again if we dont try to pay this XXXX off. We will just keep compounding it and we are not going to catch up. This is outrageous. How did this happen? 
Why werent we informed of all of this? We dont have this kind of money to rectify this. We are on XXXX salary. My wife receives social security XXXX. We are struggling with several large monthly bills as it is between last year and this, so far, had to go into settlement on XXXX major credit cards due to high interest rates they refused to lower, just so we can meet our major monthly obligations. 
Furthermore, they are trying to charge us a title search fee of almost {$350.00} which we are protesting. As mentioned, we werent even aware we were going to have to go into a modification, why or how would we know we were going to have to face fees associated with it? Where did this come from and why so long? It started showing up this past summer on the account and XXXX of the things my wife was calling about in XXXX where she encountered the incompetent individual who could not assist. 
Lastly, this company makes it extremely difficult to navigate their website to contact them. They have the contact us or email button completely hidden. You can not ask quick questions. I am not sure why they are doing this on such an important site that deals with mortgages. Its extremely frustrating. 

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