Consumer complaint received 2026-03-29 00:00:00
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Struggling to pay mortgage — An existing modification, forbearance plan, short sale, or other loss mitigation relief
Company: M&T BANK CORPORATION
State: UT

Complaint narrative:
In XXXX of XXXX, We had just paid our last payment of a payment plan the previous XX/XX/XXXX and XXXX XXXX our mortgage provider at their request. I spoke with a gentlemen from the company who asked about our payments and if everything was good to continue on with our normal mo thly payments of XXXX a month. I had recently just lost my 22 month old neice whom I raised like as my own child due to my sister losing her husband tragically and in front of us just 2 years prior at our family pool party on XX/XX/XXXX. The child was aslo tragically killed in a parking lot being hit by a truck, so needless to say our financial plans had just taken another hit. I chose to open up to the gentlemen how this would be affecting my ability to increase our income and as planned and emotionally/physically how we were struggling. My husband is a XXXX veteran on a fixed income and I am currently working a XXXX case for myselg due to health issues so increased costs with four children, one with XXXX has placed us at a disadvantage and made it difficult to pay bills. He assured me they woupd do everything in their power to ease that burden and that there " were new programs just passed and in place to aid us in lowering our payment monthly or defferring it if needed ''. He also asked if " I wanted him to look into those '' and " start that apllication process '' to which I responded yes and he replied that he would do so and " then contact us back with his findings and to offer the options available ''. I told him that would be amazing and it would greatly help as I imagined that the coming months would be a burden financially to our family of XXXX. He was very kind, helpful and generous with his condolonces and offerings of help, so much so that I left the conversation relieved. He told me that the process could " take some time, typically 30 plus days '' and to " not pay the typical mortgage payment while waiting for the application process to finalize '', but that if we felt financially comfortable to do so, we could call back and resume normal payments and stop the application process before that time period was up as well. In XX/XX/XXXX, we had still not heard from the mortgage company about the application process or our options via mail, phone or email as told and did not pay our XXXX payment as advised. XXXX being our first " normal '' monthly payment since our last repayment plan, the extra XXXX a month was a great relief to already tight financial and medical bills. We then chose to contact the company, we were told " it was still in processing '' at that time. In XXXX, my husband recieved a phone call from the mortgage company about the apporval for the application and our " options '', which suprisingly were no different than the previous options a year ago and offered no difference financially as told by the previous gentlemen. At that time we were now 3 payments owing in total and told that the options were to do the repayment plan offered ( typical 12 month repayment plan as before ), or pay the amount now 3 months past due in full, refinance our 2.75 % rate or do a foreclosure sale. My husband having a brain injury, knows that he cannpt handle all that onformation and told the person that he would need to speak with his wife first and the gentlemen responded that he would call back or reach back out to hear our answer and to either agree or disagree to this plan offering. When my husband told me of this, I was surprised and frustrated and began to feel misled. Not only were the offerings NOT different, but now we were in a similar boat as before and could not resume normal monthly payments due to being 3 months behind in waiting for all of this " processing ''. I told him wait for the callback so we could clarify dealings and to see if they would explain more in detail. In late XXXX, no phone call or email correspondance had happened from them and in XXXX I was beginning to wonder why, so I called the mortgage company at the prompting of our VA mortgage rep. I was told that we were late on the repayment plan accepted and that the " foreclosure process had been started since we were more than 30 days late ''. I went on to explain the situation and my confusion at this as we had not received the phone call or correspondance as previously communicated to us and that we had not agreed to any such plan. I was met with hostility and told that this was the plan offered and XXXX agreed to it. I then asked to be transferred and it was explained to me in detail that the only options at this time were to restart the application process all over again ( which would take XXXX plus more days to reprocess if THEY accepted it ) or to sell the home in a short sale, or repay the back owed amount plus fees ( now 4 months behind and over XXXX with included fees. I explained that our financial situation and grief were such that we could not repay that amount in totality at that time and we were left feeling very misled about this process. Feeling pressured to not lose our home, I told him to restart the process as before and contact us back via email, mail and phone with the application results as they had not done so before and we did not want another error causing us to lose our home. In XXXX I contacted someone again with M and T and relayed my frustration about the difference in this process from last uear and also the way we had been misled about aid offerings as well as how a few employees had not done what we were told. I was then told the application to restart the plan had been accepted and sent an email and mail with the balance as well as the previous " foreclosure information '' with lawyers fees of around XXXX attatched. The balance owing at that time with ALL fees included was a little over XXXX. I was then told about the XXXX monthly repayment plan and being shocked at the great increse, asked for the breakdown. I was met with hostility and told that the breakdown would be provided later and that we needed to agree on the phone or deny the application. The gentlemen I spoke with was extremely confrontational and argumentative, but I proceeded to explain my confusion with this process this time around and also my frustration. He then proceeded to argue with me about my feelings and continued to contradict his communications about the application process to me. My hisband who was on the phone with me, decided to mediate and was very clear about our desire to just process this new agreement as told to us, but that we just needed a prices breakfown and clarification on fees as it was told to us then that there had been an increase of almost XXXX not accounted for. My husband was also met with argumentative banter and said we would need to speak with someone else about it as the gentlemen was not listening to us or answering our questions and that we just wanted to get help with thos clarification. He proceeded to call us liars and also said that we did need to agree over the phone with him or he would cancel the plan, to which my husband asked if that was true, the gentlemen said we will contact you with paperwork and then you can look it over and agree or disagree by responding back via mail or email! We were extremely confused at this point because the man and told us two conflicting things about the agreement process. One he had stated that you simply agree over the phone and two that you need to legally respond via mail/email and sign paperwork which we had done before. We asked for more clarification and we chose to end the call due to the escalation of the man 's rude and curt behaviour. After hanging up, fearing this gentlemen 's retaliation on our loan application and wanting to still recieve clarificarion on the loan amount as well as agree to it to be able to keep our home, I called back to speak with someone different as well as report the previous man 's behaviour. I spoke with an overly kind woman and went over the discrepencies of the repayment with her, as well as the process in which the plan and agreement to the plan should go. I was told by her that the repayment plan has to be agreed to by all parties and that you would need to look it over in full and call back to give your verbal agreement to the plan to start it, but not sign documents or go over them with a service provider assigned as previously done a year ago. The lady was also upfront about the only options avaialable to us and proceeded to go over the repayment plan cost with us. At one point she also was confused at the cost breakdown discrepency and left me on hold for a while to speak with " the back office '' who handles these things. She came back with no answer other than " they would open and inquiry and respond back later with their findings '', she also promtped me to contact the foreclsure lawyer who she believes added the arroneous fees added and also that they would need to be notified by me about the stopping of that process as they could continue to collect on their seperate balance. I was also told that if we were to stop this application process for any reason that collection practices would proceed and revert back to foreclosure processing and restart our late timer back to the 6 months past due reportings and accelerate these proceedings, which seemed very ominous to me. I was also told that our new payment would indeed be XXXX a month and that it was indeed the only plan available and offered to aid us other than quick sale or foreclosure. We agreed to this plan over the phone together, feeling no other option and fearing losing our home and decided to again trust the words of this rep and M and T, despite out recent misleading dealings with them. All of this time the practices and dealings with M and T have been vastly dfferent than our previous mortgage company and has led to me to question a great many issues with our mortgage habdling by them. Over a year ago ( XXXX ) I reached out to them to ask about some other discrepencies that I and financial advisor of mine noticed with the loan. The ammoritization had not broken down as it should and the totla balance owing was not reflecting the proper amount given the recent large payoff of a previous balance by state covid aid. I was also met with hostility and then lied to about the process and told to " look online '' and that I would recieve the breakdown paperwork I requested in the mail. I did not recieve any such paperwork and reached out a few more times over months and was never provided with any answers or information. I have a very busy life and issues like this although frustrating can not take up more than a week of my time. I also have an anxiety disorder as well as XXXX and these phone calls and communications with this bank have left me needing to seek medical help and therapy. I have never dwalt with a bank like this, other than a collection company and it feels oddly the same. The entrapment and confusion perpetuated by all this has still left us feeling like this bank is out to take our home fear for our finacial safety. We have reached out and been told there are " many options to help us in our time of need '', but that has not been our findings or the case with this bank. It has all seemed like a game made to entrap us into paying more than we can afford and set us up for failure due to their mishandling of repayment applications and payments. As of XX/XX/XXXX, we have received two packets pertsining to the recent repayment plan application and none explain the misc. fee I inquired about that brought us over the original reported amount by them in XXXX. The total repayment plan ampunt still sits at XXXX. We have been contacted by phone once since then, but I have not responded back as I have not recieved the email or mail correspondance I requested and was told I would receive about this or other issues. We recieved a very ominous, threatening orange note on our door today ( XX/XX/XXXX ) however requesting us to call M and T bank, with no other information provided. I am not sure why when we login no other info or correspo dance has happened or updated, but we will simply go through with this high re-payment plan and wait for them to respond with the accurate reasoning and price breakdown/ammoritization schedule for this repayment plan with baited breath. I would also like to note the suspicious way their website has issues with updates on our account or how the website is often having loading errors or " scheduled maintenance '' right whrn we need to make payments online. Also recently as I had before, I have had issues with the website login and payment links. I set up a payment ealrier in XXXX ( XXXX ) and had to delete it as the I needed the date changed and in trying to set it up to pay it earlier, the system would not allow me to do so and kept giving errors and gave no explanation as to why. I am not sure what is going on but this also happens to coincide with other issues we have had in the past with them and it does not seem to be simply coincidental. They also previously said we were up to date in XXXX when our XXXX payment would be due and now claim XXXX as not paid. There are too many issies for this to " sit right '' with myshuband and I and for a VA backed loan for a XXXX veteran and his family this had been nothing short of egregious behaviour and innapropriate mishandling by a loan by a mortgage company!

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation