Consumer complaint received 2020-01-17
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — 
Company: EarnUp Inc. (OH)

This complaint is regarding Earn Up, a mortgage payment service that withdraws bi-monthly payments and makes my mortgage payment on my behalf in order to pay down my mortgage quicker. 

I've had my XXXX mortgage for 11 years. For approximately 10 years, I used the Equity Accelerator service to pay down my mortgage faster. I never had an issue with the Equity Accelerator service. In XXXX XXXX, I was informed that Earn Up would be taking over for Equity Accelerator. All was well with Earn Up until I received a letter from Earn Up on XXXX XXXX XXXX indicating that the service was being suspended because I had insufficient funds to cover the XX/XX/XXXX draw. I instantly knew something was wrong as I've always made my mortgage payments on time. XX/XX/XXXX was a Saturday so I checked my online banking and verified that I had more than enough funds to cover my XX/XX/XXXX payment. XX/XX/XXXX was a Sunday and I could see that my mortgage payment was debited by Earn Up on Monday XX/XX/XXXX. So you can imagine my confusion as to why I received this letter. I called XXXX on Sunday to verify that the mortgage payment was debited from my checking account without issue and they confirmed that. I could not call Earn Up until Monday because they don't have weekend hours. 

The more I studied the letter I received from Earn Up, the more concerned I became. The township in which I live was misspelled in the addressee section ( XXXX instead of XXXX ). The loan number was masked with # signs except for the last 4 digits, but there 2 more placeholders than what I know my mortgage account number to be. The letter states that they attempted to debit my account on XX/XX/XXXX, when in fact Earn Up debited my account on XX/XX/XXXX. I was concerned that the letter, with all of its inaccuracies, was a phishing attempt. You can imagine how my anxiety increased over the weekend first knowing that I made my payment, and secondly concerned about the legitimacy of the letter. 

I called Earn Up on Monday XX/XX/XXXX and spoke to XXXX. I told XXXX XXXX was calling about a letter I had received about an issue with a payment. XXXX started talking about an issue with my XX/XX/XXXX payment. I stopped him and told him that his information contradicted the information in the letter. He put me on hold to research. When he came back, he said that he believed me that I had the money in my account and was going to reinstate the service. First, I was appalled that he told me twice that he believed me. I'm a responsible adult who pays my bills on time. I thought it unprofessional for someone to tell me that they believed me. I had to press XXXX for information about why I received the letter given that my XX/XX/XXXX payment was debited without issue. XXXX indicated that there was a system issue that resulted in that letter being mailed to some customers. So again, why is XXXX telling me that he believes me when I said I have the money and he knows there's a system issue? But more importantly, if Earn Up knew that there was a system issue that resulted in this letter being mailed to consumers, why didn't Earn Up do anything to proactively identify these consumers and correct the situation? I would expect Earn Up, in this situation, to do just that, call the customers, advise them of the situation and the letter we were going to receive, then advise that the XX/XX/XXXX payment was debited without issue and that my service would maintain in place uninterrupted? That is what I would expect in this situation. XXXX said my XX/XX/XXXX payment would be debited on XX/XX/XXXX and that my full mortgage payment would be made before any late fees would be incurred on XX/XX/XXXX. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I could see that my checking account was debited, but on XX/XX/XXXX, my mortgage payment was not posted. I called Earn Up again on XX/XX/XXXX and spoke to XXXX. He advised that the money would be sent to XXXX that day. Imagine my  surprise when my payment wasn't posted on XX/XX/XXXX. So I called Earn Up again and spoke to XXXX who advised that the funds were sent to processing on XX/XX/XXXX and would be delivered electronically to XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX. Why couldn't XXXX or XXXX have advise of that? 

Ultimately my mortgage payment was made on XX/XX/XXXX and no late fees were incurred. But this situation caused needless stress and anxiety. I did everything I needed to do on my end to ensure funds were there for my mortgage payments, but Earn Up dropped the ball and didn't do anything about it, leaving consumers to stress ( and in this case, me stressing for an entire weekend before I could contact Earn Up ) over a situation that could have, and should have, been proactively addressed by Earn Up.