Consumer complaint received 2022-09-10
Product: Mortgage — VA mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — 
Company: AXOS FINANCIAL, INC. (UT)

Our mortgage lender is AXOS Bank. Our VA loan # is XXXX. We pay our mortgage online every month thru XXXX one-time payment portal and we always make our mortgage payment of {$560.00} each month plus an additional {$77.00} for principal only, for a total of {$640.00} each month. On XXXX XXXX, XXXX, we made a payment of {$1600.00} ( statement dated XX/XX/XXXX attached ). On XX/XX/XXXX, we went to make another payment of {$1600.00} and AXOS Bank is preventing us from making our XXXX mortgage payment. Our statement for XX/XX/XXXXXXXX  shows there is no payment due based on XX/XX/XXXXXXXX  payment of {$1600.00} made ( statement dated XX/XX/XXXX attached ). The payment has been advanced forward by more than 30 days by AXOS Bank because we made a large principal only payment on XXXX XXXX, XXXX. 

On XX/XX/XXXXXXXX  at XXXX XXXX. XXXX XXXX we attempted to contact AXOS Bank at the customer service number ( XXXX ) XXXX ; no one would answer AXOS Bank customer service phone. 

On XX/XX/XXXX we called another AXOS Bank customer service number ( XXXX ) XXXX and spoke to a representative by the name of XXXX. We complained to him about being prevented from making our XX/XX/XXXXXXXX  mortgage payment. He reviewed our account, assigned us case # XXXX, and told us it would take AXOS 24 to 48 hours to fix the account so that we could make our XX/XX/XXXX mortgage payment online. We were also told by XXXX that we could set up an online account with a user and password to make future payments. Unfortunately, AXOS Bank would not allow us to set up an online account with a password unless we proved who we were by taking a selfie of myself holding my Utah driver license. XXXX provided us with an email address of XXXX and told us to email proof of ID to customer service. As we were sick with XXXX, I said I would wait until we were better to take a selfie on my phone and email it to AXOS Bank at XXXX. 

On XX/XX/XXXXXXXX  I took a selfie of myself with the Utah driver license and emailed it to AXOS Bank at XXXX. I then went into the one-time payment portal for AXOS Bank to make our XXXX mortgage payment, only to find AXOS Bank had done nothing in 7 days to fix our account, that we were still blocked from making any mortgage payments. AXOS Bank portal tells us Payments can not be greater than {$0.00}. We called AXOS Bank at ( XXXX ) XXXX and again spoke to XXXX. He gave no clear reason why our account wasnt fixed and said we should make an XXXX automatic payment from now on, rather than pay online. We told him that we wanted to pay additional principal payments of a minimum of {$1000.00} per month, every month, on our mortgage loan thru the online portal and we were told by XXXX you can not make more than double your mortgage payment for principal. Based on XXXX representation, that would limit us to making a mortgage payment of only {$1100.00} each month, rather than {$1600.00} each month. This effectively is a prepayment penalty put in place by AXOS Bank. 

We asked for a supervisor to get the account cleared up since more than one week had passed since our conversation on XX/XX/XXXXXXXX  and our loan account still was not corrected. We were told there were no supervisors available, they are all in a meeting. Convenient. XXXX sent us an XXXX from via email and told us to use the XXXX automatic payment form to make our payments. We do NOT want our lender to have control over our payment schedule via XXXX. We make our own payments, timely, but our way and not just the minimum mortgage payment. 

XXXX still could not give us a definite answer as to when our account would be fixed to make our payment and when a password would be accepted by their loan department after receiving my Utah driver license. 
We ended the call with XXXX and called yet another AXOS Bank customer service number at ( XXXX ) XXXX and spoke to another representative who reviewed our account and when we asked for a supervisor, we were again told no supervisors are available, they are all in a meeting and someone would get back to us in 24 hours ( which would again make it 3 days later due to the weekend ). 

Again, no effort was made to take our payment over the phone by AXOS Bank ; we were told to set the account up thru automatic payment by XXXX, which we will not do. 

This is not an isolated incident with AXOS Bank. This is a pattern of conduct and behavior with AXOS Bank XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. They did the very same thing to our loan back in XX/XX/XXXX and failed and refused to post a principal only payment to our account correctly, resulting in a complaint being filed against XXXX XXXX XXXX  exactly 5 years ago in XX/XX/XXXX. 

Our complaint against AXOS Bank : ( 1 ) our account is blocked by AXOS Bank from making our mortgage payment timely ; ( 2 ) we are told we can not make more than twice the monthly mortgage payment for a principal only payment, which is clearly a prepayment penalty put in place by AXOS Bank ; ( 3 ) we can not get a password set up on our account despite giving AXOS proof of identification to set up the account.