Consumer complaint received 2023-10-20 00:00:00
Product: Mortgage — VA mortgage
Issue: Struggling to pay mortgage — Trying to communicate with the company to fix an issue related to modification, forbearance, short sale, deed-in-lieu, bankruptcy, or foreclosure
Company: Mr. Cooper Group Inc.
State: TX

Complaint narrative:
Regarding Mr Cooper. Last XXXX our mortgage payments increased with no notice. These payments went up due to our county not properly filing our tax exemption, and then refusing to issue a refund ( my husband is a XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX veteran which means we are exempt from property tax in Texas ). The mortgage company paid the tax bill out of our escrow which was set up to ONLY pay insurance, and they made this payment with no communication to us. I contacted the mortgage company who set up an escrow shortage spread to make the payments more manageable while I continue to fight the county to try to get this refund. We made our payment every month and when XXXX came around, I was notified by the credit bureaus that the mortgage company reported I was not making my payments. When I called to ask why they were reporting this information I was met with arrogance stating a partial payment is of course going to be reported as I hadnt made full payments. I requested to speak with a manager- waited over a week and no one called. I did this dance for over a month and finally just had to reach out to XXXX XXXX to help me ( this is who set up my escrow shortage payment to begin with ). My contact at XXXX XXXX connected me to someone with Mr Cooper who looked into my account - by this point we were in XXXX. I was told that it could take up to a month to get our account corrected and the escrow shortage plan to be applied correctly. Something had happened with the system to where it was not accepting the payments I was making as a whole payment. The escrow analysis was finally able to be done in XXXX, because the county finally filed the tax exemption, but I still have not gotten the refund. In XXXX I was finally able to start making payments again, however, by this point, we had faced a few financial hardships due to having to shut our business down last year, causing us to have to seek different avenues of employment. No assistance programs have been offered to us when I mentioned that we were not able to make the higher payments back in XXXX due to having to shut our business down. I made payments as I could when I could, and currently we are caught up until XXXX, but when I asked what my options were, I was told that the Covid program ended in XXXX this was a program we probably would have been able to apply for had I known it was an option last XXXX. I have spoke with the VA and my VA representative has reached out to Mr. Cooper stating that they need to work with us and trying to get some sort of payment plan put in place. After this call was made by the VA, the options presented to us were doubling up on payments for three months, in addition to making a {$5700.00} payment. This was offered to us on XX/XX/XXXX at the time we could not afford to do because they refuse to take anything less than the {$5700.00}, we had offered to pay {$4000.00} but they would not accept it. on XX/XX/XXXX I called to make sure the three month payment plan was still an option, as I was expecting a commission check to come in and was told that yes, it could still be done. a couple of days later I called to make the {$5700.00} payment and was told I only needed to make a payment at {$5300.00} despite me informing the agent I was told {$5700.00}, so I made the {$5300.00} payment. A few days after that I was getting a phone call stating that an appraiser was trying to come out and appraise our property because we were in liquidation. When I contacted Mr. Cooper again, I was told that the three month payment was no longer a plan that we could utilize because the property was officially in foreclosure status. I had requested a callback from a manager, and whenever I called to try and get in touch with the managers, I am met with resistance, stating they stated they would call me and that I am not giving them enough time to do so. In the past, I have had several managers or employees state that they were going to be putting callback request in the system, only to get no call, so now I opt for just calling every day. I am trying to get this resolved as quickly as possible, but the only thing I have been offered to this point is loan modification which would drastically increase our mortgage and we wouldnt be able to afford it as our rate is at 2 % right now. The VA requested a deferment for the payments seeing as the covid relief was never even presented as an option when I first began working with the company last year. Mr. Cooper stated that they are not allowed to do deferments. Up to the issue with the taxes, no payment was ever late or missed as all of our payments were set up on auto pay. After the escrow spread was applied to our account, we requested to be put back on auto pay, and were told that we could not because the system would continue to draft the amount prior to the escrow spread. At this point I just want them to honor what they told me I was going to be able to do, and except the {$5300.00} payment and set up a three month repayment plan. I even offered to bring the {$5300.00} payment up to the {$5700.00} payment which I was initially told I was going to have to pay, and tried to pay Despite the representative stating it was only {$5300.00} payment that was due. I am being told this is no longer an option, unless I pay their attorney fees as well. This company is disorganized, disloyal, and has some of the worst customer service Ive ever seen. Our mortgage has been a mess since XXXX XXXX sold our mortgage to Mr. Cooper. I know that my point of contact with XXXX XXXX has filed an official complaint against the Mr. Cooper office within XXXX XXXX, but thats not enough at this point. I am being met with resistance, and have been this whole process outside of when I was able to deal with XXXX XXXX. Again, all of this started when Mr. Cooper paid taxes out of our escrow account, which was not permitted. The issues then persisted when the escrow spread was not applied in their system, causing false reporting on our credit, stating that we were not making our payments. No relief options were ever provided to us outside of this escrow, shortage, plan, and it was not until XXXX that we were informed about the Covid relief program which would have been able to help us last year after we shut our business down.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation