Freedom Mortgage Corporation

Every month when I have to make my mortgage payment I have issues with their payment portal. I am either logged out, it fails to function correctly with the web browser, there are errors loading the page, etc. Last month their system attempted to pull funds using the routing number for wiring funds, which I never provided them or authorized them to access, which resulted in a failure to take the payment nearly resulting in a late payment of our mortgage. Every month I end up having to talk to a customer service representative who has no answers or help for me aside from having to end up taking my payment over the phone and waiving the phone payment fee.
Yes, thats correct, if their online module is not functional their system is set up for a $10 convenience fee for you to pay through their phone system. Shady.
A process that should take a minute tops always takes 15+ minutes of attempts to log on, load pages, access accounts, punch in loan numbers and SSNs through the phone and then talking with a representative. I can't imagine how this company functions on the inside if this is how things look from the outside.
I'm kind of at a loss knowing I have years and years ahead of me dealing with this company...

Review: I currently have a home loan with Freedom Mortgage. In June 2014 I spoke with an agent who offered a supposedly "great and easy plan" to skip and payment, but split the difference by adding it to the regular monthly payment each month. She said that we would have 6 months to pay it off. It sounded like a good plan, so I agreed. I began to pay the monthly payment each month, along with the additional amount for the June payment. Once you set up any sort of payment plan with a company, you are normally "protected" under the new plan agreement until it is paid off. However, after the first few months, I realized that my payment was being reported late every month on my credit report??!! How is that possible when I am adhering to our agreement and paying on time each month, ALONG with the additional payment. NEVER did anyone mention that it would be reported late!! If I knew that was the case, I would never have agreed to the plan. When I called about it, I was told that there was nothing they could do and that they are required to report it. BUT TECHNICALLY it is NOT LATE! I am paying on time and then some. This agreement is totally bogus, misleading and makes completely no sense at all. Once I realized what was happening, I wanted out of the plan to avoid any more late reporting. In October 2014 I called and asked them what I needed to do (and pay) to get out of the plan. They gave me the amount and I paid it to current and it went back to the regular payment. This did not help me AT ALL and has completely ruined my credit!! We are working on some very important business transactions and this ridiculous plan has ruined our lives! It could not have come at a worse time! THEN, I just found out that they added an additional $400 to my last payment and took it out of my bank account with no explanation at all! When I called about it, they are claiming that it is for LATE FEES!!?? For on-time payments!!?? ABSURD!Desired Settlement: If this is how Freedom Mortgage operates they are totally unethical, underhanded and taking advantage of their customers! I am demanding a FULL refund of the additional "late fees" of $447.00 immediately, refunded back into my bank account. AND, I am demanding a correction of ALL the months reported late with EVERY single reporting agency immediately!

Business

Response:

Ms. [redacted], I asked our servicing center to review the issue you had. You were on a repayment plan to make up for the payment that you were not able to pay. Below was their response. Also the late charges are included in the plan because the loan is considered lateA repayment plan letter was sent to the borrower on June 30, 2014. The plan consisted of one payment of $1750.00 and 5 remaining payments of $1770.58 for a total of $10,602.90. This total included 6 regular mortgage payments of $1,456.44, the "skipped" payment in amount of $1,456.44 which equals = $10195.88. The remaining amount is the late fees in amount of $407.82.While the borrower did pay as agreed, she was still delinquent. We have to report accurately, which is why we have the code which states payment plan. The level of delinquency did not increase, but is reported each month what it was at the time the plan took effect. The idea behind the repayment plan, is that by the end of the plan, the loan will be current. Below is how she was reported: 01/20/2015 01/01/2015 4 11-CURRENT 12/22/2014 12/01/2014 4 11-CURRENT 11/20/2014 11/01/2014 4 11-CURRENT 10/20/2014 09/01/2014 4 71-30 DAYS D AC-PARTL PYMT AGREE 09/22/2014 08/01/2014 4 71-30 DAYS D AC-PARTL PYMT AGREE 08/20/2014 07/01/2014 4 71-30 DAYS D AC-PARTL PYMT AGREE 07/21/2014 06/01/2014 4 71-30 DAYS D AC-PARTL PYMT AGREE [redacted]Vice President Customer ServiceFreedom Mortgage corporation

Review: They advertise being able to pay the monthly bill online at no charge however, every month the login information does not work and I have to call them. The fee to make a phone payment is $15 which they will not waive even though I prefer to pay online.Desired Settlement: Fix the service so that it works as advertised or waive the phone payment fee since the online payment option consistently does not work.

Business

Response:

[redacted], It is my understanding that the loan servicing center re-set your user ID so that you would be able to access the system. If this is not the case and you need further assistance please email me at[redacted]Vice President Customer ServiceFreedom Mortgage Corp

Review: My primary mortgage is held with [redacted] from whom I received an email back in June 2015 indicating that I could refinance my loan with no appraisal, lower rate, etc. When I inquired about the offer, I was connected with Freedom Mortgage (an [redacted] partner). From June 11, 2015-Oct 2, 2015, my husband and I were given the run around regarding the status of our loan. We provided all requested documentation in a timely matter and followed up with the representative regularly. We kept being told it was in process and everything was fine; waiting on the subordination of our home equity loan. By early August, they closed the loan for no reason other than they did not follow-up and actually request the subordination (I confirmed this with the home equity lender). I subsequently got in touch with a manager who assured me that the loan would be re-opened and no further issues would occur. Again, I was in constant contact with [redacted] to obtain the loan status and make sure all that we could do on our end was taken care of...I would often not receive responses to my emails, or receive poorly written emails or I would receive an out of office message indicating he was out until 5/27/15 (this was Aug-Oct 2015!). When I brought it to his attention, he took no action. He eventually asked me to follow-up with our home equity lender (on 9/25/15) who confirmed a request was received on 8/28/15 and a response (requiring further action from Freedom) was sent 8/31/15. When I advised [redacted] of this on 9/30/15 and ask that I receive a call or email from management, I received another out of office message for 5/27/15 and then emailed his college, [redacted], who also failed to contact me. My next contact from [redacted] was on 10/2/15 indicating that our loan request had been closed because they did not follow-up with the home equity lender as is their job. My experience with Freedom has been HORRIBLE and we've lost several months now of prime rate time trying to refi our loan.Desired Settlement: Provide the loan as well as compensate me (by way of improving the terms of the loan) for the inconvenience, undue stress and aggravation caused by your poor business practices and customer service. Make this right! I would also like to be contacted by [redacted] (via email) to confirm that they are aware of the type of poor service being provided by their business partners.

Business

Response:

[redacted], upon receipt of your complaint I asked the processing area to review the file. It seems that there was a large degree of difficulty obtaining the subordination agreement from your second lien holder and once we were communicating with them they had added some additional requirements. The application was eventually closed for incompleteness on 9/28/15 as we still did not have the subordination. We did finally obtain it on 10/5/15. The loan would have to be re-written since it was closed out. I asked the loan officer to reach out to you to see if you wanted to proceed but I was told that a message had to be left and I see no other action on the file. Please email me if you would like the loan officer to call you, [redacted]Sincerely,[redacted]Vice President Customer ServiceFreedom Mortgage Corporation

Consumer

Response:

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response. If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.

Please note that I dispute the notion that the reason for the loan falling apart was due to the subordination. That information was supposed to have been requested well before August and Freedom did a poor job following-up on the request and responding to the additional requirements. I truly believe that, based on the interaction I had with the representatives I was dealing with at the time, the ball was dropped by them TWICE and no one else.

Regards,

My refinance process took much longer than initially quoted at the beginning to the tune of 2 months. The only truly helpful person in the process at Freedom Mortgage was Susie [redacted] one of the assistant vice president of sales. She took her time and seemed to thoughtfully answer our questions, even if not in her duty area. Our loan processor, Kyle [redacted] was less than helpful during this process. I, as a customer, shouldn't have had to initiate all communication to find out what documents were needed and this is the way we felt with him. All documents that he did request after each of our inquiries were all returned to him within 24 hours of request. I had to initiate contact with people outside of the agency to gather information that he was supposed to gather just because I wanted to keep my refinance moving forward. Kyle rarely returned our phone calls and our emails often took several days to gain a reply. The several times I tried to contact Kyle's supervisor, Nina [redacted] regarding these communication issues, she also never returned my calls, nor did she reply via email. At one point during this process, about 3 days before my rate lock expired, Kyle went out of town and left us to try and work out the situation with other loan processors who seemed overwhelmed by having to pick up Kyle's missing pieces of his files. Again, Susie [redacted] pulled through and was able to get our rate lock extended at no cost to us. Kyle finally was able to schedule a closing date for us and we had to find out form the Title company on the day of closing that our closing had been cancelled because they were to have scheduled in, not the loan processor Kyle (a fact that he should have known). We closed on our refinance on a Monday, had our loan disbursement on Friday of that week and we still have Kyle trying to gather new signed documents for our file. These new documents state that they are part of our loan application, after the fact. I would not recommend Freedom Mortgage to anyone to use unless you want to do unnecessary work that the mortgage company should be doing.