Consumer complaint received 2023-07-27
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Struggling to pay mortgage — 
Company: Fay Servicing, LLC (FL)

We are facing a foreclosure sale date on XX/XX/XXXX because our mortgage lender Fay Servicing has unnecessarily delayed and obstructed our attempts at resolving our delinquent payments. We have spent over one year going back and forth with them to try and get reviewed for a program to help with our delinquent payments. We were victims of a nationwide mortgage scam by XXXX XXXX XXXX who claimed they were affiliated with Fay Servicing and they could restructure our mortgage modification and lower the interest rate and payments. They convinced us to send our payments directly to them by money order and instructed us to send Fay Servicing a cease and desist letter so we would not know that they were stealing our payments. The Federal Trade Commission and State of California shut them down and filed lawsuit and froze their assets in late XXXX. That is the reason we fell behind on the mortgage for my home that I have owned for over 20 years. 

I filed a complaint with the New Jersey Attorney General ( documentation attached ) and because of this scam I became delinquent on my mortgage payment with Fay. When I contacted Fay Servicing to request that they work with me to resolve this matter, their agents said they would help us to get caught back up on the payments. However they have been difficult to work with, we were told to submit paperwork and it has been submitted repeatedly but we are always told that something is missing, or expired or not in the right format. Their inaction has put us almost another year behind on the mortgage loan which led to the sale date. We thought that Fay was genuine and wanted to help but we saw that this company has a history of unethical behavior with distressed homeowners files. We should not lose our home of 20 years because we have sufficient income to make the mortgage payment and this hardship is resolved. The problem is we initially fell behind because of the scam where we sent our mortgage payments to XXXX XXXX  XXXX thinking they were going to Fay. But after we notified Fay it has been another year of getting the runaround and we feel that Fay would rather foreclose and steal our equity than provide fair options to fix this problem. 

We also have serious questions about Fay Servicing 's accounting. The mortgage statement claims we are {$72000.00} behind on the loan, but that is hard to believe considering our monthly payment was only {$1700.00}. We are requesting a full ledger of all payments that were made and applied since XXXX as well as a breakdown of missed payments, escrow and late fees and legal fees and junk fees that Fay Servicing has added. In XXXX my family was impacted by Covid my son XXXX ( who is a non borrower contributor ) owns a XXXX XXXX and had to shut down due to pandemic, as well as affecting my part time work for the school district. We applied for and were approved for a loan modification with Fay Servicing. We paid as agreed for about 4 months and then were contacted by XXXX XXXX XXXX. They claimed to represent Fay Servicing and claimed that they could go back in and re-apply and lower the interest rate on the approved modification, which would reduce the payment from {$1700.00} per month to {$1100.00}. They had us fill out a cease and desist letter to Fay so that you would not contact us to tell us were falling behind. They sent us a XXXX XXXX label each month and would only accept certified funds, cashier 's checks or money orders for payment. I have included documentation showing how they operated the scam. I feel very dumb for having believed them and made payments to them for almost 9 months and was continually asking them why the modification had not been finalized. They kept giving me excuse after excuse and finally I knew something was wrong and stopped paying them. 

That is when I reached out to my mortgage lender Fay Servicing. I understand that they have not been paid, and we want to fix this. We have the ability to make our mortgage payment