Consumer complaint received 2021-09-14
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — 
Company: Mr. Cooper Group Inc. (NC)

What is this complaint about? 

My wife and I are having problems with making payments in good faith to Mr. Cooper. Their system makes it hard for us to pay in good faith without having either harassing statements like " we are a debt collection agency. Any statement you may make will be used for collection purposes '' before talking to them, getting multiple debt collection agencies calls to our cell phones, emails stating we must pay our debt, or when we try to talk to them, they want us to guarantee we will pay before talking to them. 

We have these issues because we pay using Bill Pay through our bank, and Mr. Cooper registers the transactions as being paid as additional principal instead of being placed in the unapplied fund 's category. We have had multiple times ( 4 ) to call and have the funds reapplied due to the discrepancies that caused the issues. I have called and requested this. 

What type of problem are you having? 

Today, XX/XX/XXXX, the complaint comes from being called twice by a Mr. Cooper debt collecter using my personal information left on my cell phone answering service from XXXX. I called Mr. Cooper at XXXX XXXX  EST. I spoke with XXXX, and from a script, could only, in the end, want me to guarantee to pay the amount for the account after my request to have the amounts that after three discussions previous ( XX/XX/XXXX ) to have amounts reversed and was told it was done. I expressed that they must put my payments into the unapplied fund 's account. 

24 CFR 203.556 - Return of partial payments. 
( b ) Except as provided in this section, the mortgagee shall accept any partial payment and either apply it to the mortgagor 's account or identify it with the mortgagor 's account and hold it in a trust account pending disposition. When partial payments held for disposition aggregate a full monthly installment, they shall be applied to the mortgagor 's account, thus advancing the date of the oldest unpaid installment but not the date on which the account first became delinquent. 

I was transferred to XXXX XXXX, the escalation person, who then expressed there was no other way to resolve the issue unless we used there XXXX stated that the payments we make in good faith are default ( automatically ) sent to " principal payment, '' not to the unapplied funds that aggregate to pay off when the next cycle begins or the next whole payment. The only remedy is to pay using a direct checking account draft or a one-time payment that uses direct drafting information from your bank accounts. No disclosures state that they will not use this since they are also a debt collector in the future at their wish to collect funds. I find the tactic deceiving the user to give up information that will ultimately be used against them as this is the only way XXXX says will " guarantee '' any extra payment will be applied appropriately. I do not believe that this will effectively meet up to 24 CFR 203.556. It allows Mr. Cooper to harass you to use their paperless system, use their payment system, and give up your rights, personal information, and ability to manage your bank account effectively as they can draft from it at any time. 

What happened? 

Many issues come from mortgage companies that buy the mortgage at wholesale ; I did not choose them ; they chose me. I have the right not to have Mr. Cooper follow the CFR regulations for partial mortgage payments. I have attached copies of the information showing the transactions and how they were applied, and you can see after my phone calls the reversals. The most recent reversal was not done promptly, and I may suffer the consequences of having credit problems because of Mr. Cooper 's inability to follow the CFR and properly post payments made by their customers in good faith. The accounting is still incorrect and needs to be adequately accounted for. 

It is also offensive to me to be called Mr. First Name. I am Mr. Last Name, Mr. First Name is a XXXX XXXX XXXX term, and I take offense. We do not live in a time of XXXX. I only expect to be treated as a person regardless of XXXX. This needs to stop and violates my protected characteristic of ethnicity, and this person should be stopped from being required to use this kind of language as it enforces a XXXX relationship. Both XXXX and XXXX used this terminology, and I am offended and expressed to XXXX that is not who I am.