Consumer complaint received 2021-05-29
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — 
Company: REGIONS FINANCIAL CORPORATION (IN)

On [ XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX PM ] we asked Regions : " I would like to request/confirm that any additional payments I make to this mortgage will be applied solely to the principal? Thank you. '' The next day we received the response " Yes, the additional payments can be applied to the account. Please make payments after the current payments is due and prior to the next one. The website is the best place to confirm if they were applied as intended. '' We followed their instructions and immediately noticed that the payments were NOT applied as intended. We have been attempting to work directly with Regions and with the assistance of the CFPB since XX/XX/XXXX to have them fix the issue but to no avail. This is our 6th message to the CFPB regarding this ongoing, yet evolving issue. Regions often does not respond to our attempts to contact them or closes the complaint claiming that the issue has already been resolved. 

Initially, we'd proposed a simple solution : we would consider this issue resolved if what we requested 8 months ago was honored : a simple correction of their misapplication wherein {$4500.00} is applied to the principal on XX/XX/XXXX, the day the payment was made. We would immediately bring the loan current to satisfy any outstanding payments to-date.

After about 7 months of receiving minimal assistance, a Loan Servicing Escalation Specialist, XXXX XXXX, had finally begun to assist us. He began to perform some re-applications on our account which were a step in the right direction, but not complete. Ultimately, he applied the {$4500.00} on XX/XX/XXXX, but AFTER the contractual interest payment. We initiated the {$4500.00} principal payment on XX/XX/XXXX, therefore we have been asking Mr. XXXX to apply it BEFORE the contractual payment, however but he has refused to do so. Regions bank choosing to apply the payment later, simply to extract more interest from the consumer prior to applying the principal, even when we are requesting otherwise and made the payment two days prior, is in bad faith, particularly 8 months after we brought this to their attention. 

Mr. XXXX had also mentioned that we would not face any delinquencies or penalties as a result of their mistake, so long as we are prepared to make the loan current. We have notified him on several occasions that our intent is to make the loan current as soon as possible and we have the ability to do so immediately, however they still will not finish correcting the misapplication. We received a notice on XX/XX/XXXX stating " You are late on your mortgage payments. As of XX/XX/XXXX, you are 30 days delinquent on your mortgage loan. Failure to bring the loan current may result in fees or completion of the foreclosure process -- - the loss of your home. Loss Mitigation Program : Not Applicable. '' In the interim, the online payment portal has been closed off to us, and our loan auto-draft suspended without action from our part. We sent two messages to Mr. XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX reiterating our intent to pay the loan as soon as possible, hoping he would make the final correction to the misapplication, however we have not heard back. We also asked that if he is unable to assist us further, that he escalate our concern to a supervisor, but we have not heard back from anyone. 

This all stemmed from our first-ever principal-only payment as brand-new customers and first-time homeowners. This was before we had any experience with the Regions online platform. We reached out for assistance and received misleading guidance, which caused this whole error, and we continue to receive pushback and brazen refusal by Regions to fix the mistake to this day. Regions, by their own admission on XX/XX/XXXX, gave us improper instructions : " From what I see is that you may have used the wrong option to pay principal only. This is not your fault, because the proper instructions should have been provided. '' XXXX XXXX Regions representative ). There has been no grace or courtesy for us as new customers, even as we tried to secure our first-ever home in the middle of a pandemic. We sincerely hope Regions will make the simple fix and make this right.