Complaint Review: Nationstar Mortgage LLC

Nationstar Mortgage acquired my loan in July 2012.  I was informed that they would be able to take over my automatic payment plan just as it was without my having to set anything up, so I thought "great, no hassle and things will continue as they have."  I was wrong.  

They transformed my ARM loan to an interest only loan, seemingly to catch me off guard, but of course I just assumed it was an honest mistake, so when I noticed that July's payment was interest only, instead of paying down enough of the principle to conform to a thirty year loan, I set up an additional monthly principle payment online.  This was the easy part.

Now comes the hard part.  I wanted to make up for the missed July principle pay down, so I decided to pay extra in August, however, their website is set up to accept fee-free payments only between the first and tenth of the month, unless you've already paid for the next month.  Even if the next month's payment is automatically debited from your account, they will charge you a fee to use the Western Union to pay your bill online if you try to pay after the tenth for the following month.  So I waited until September 3 to pay.

I noticed right away that there was something wrong on the website when I tried to pay the extra principle.  The online form would not allow me to put all of it towards principle, and it forced part of it to go towards the next month's interest.  Knowing that October's interest, plus scheduled principle, payments were already scheduled to be automatically debited in the correct amounts from my bank account, I attached a message, as was allowed, with the extra payment on Sept 3 asking that they please make the whole of it go towards paying down my principle.  They did not comply.  Perhaps they did not read my message, I thought.

Well it took until the tenth of September to fix it totally, but they got it  done after a few phone calls, an adjustment payment and a reversal of their mistake.  So I thought, ok, I figured out how they run things, smooth sailing from here, right?  I relax.  I was wrong.

And now we've seen the tolerable, the bad, and here comes the ugly.  You should see my bill now.  It is so full of reversals and incorrect attempts at corrections that it looks like a child typed nonsense onto a keyboard all day!  They are trying to tell me that this one extra payment on principle caused a miscalculation in how I was billed, and so for the past three months I have been paying less than I should have been.  Oh and once it was mentioned that, hey, your loan terms changed so, that's probably affecting it.  Um, excuse me, they are the ones who tell me what to pay each month, and they are the ones who automatically debit their calculated amount from my checking account each month?  So when I ask them to tell me what the interest amount should have been, they read my statement to me, and we find, what, oh they are exactly what I paid, hmm.  Oh except for October, which no one can find, mysteriously.

How could things have gone so terribly wrong in only five months you ask?  Maybe Nationstar has actual children typing at their computers all day, and when an adult finally gets to the desk he thinks to himself "Woah, I don't feel like cleaning up this mess!"

So someone who isn't wise to the scheme takes a look at the mess and interprets it as non-payment.  So we get a few messages: "Your payment is late, you have late fees, your account is going into collections."  And now I know that my only mistake was letting my guard down on these guys.

And forget about customer service, I don't think they ever heard the words before.  No one speaks to you sooner than ten minutes after you dial, navigating the labyrinth of phone options takes at least four, but then they are always "experiencing higher than normal call volumes, and your wait will be greater than five minutes."

Then you talk to someone who takes your information, but they can't help you of course, so they transfer you, and you experience high call volumes again for ten minutes.  Then you talk to someone who won't give you a straight answer (ever notice how good kids are at talking in circles? these ones are awesome at it).

But no one will admit they are wrong of course.  It must have been my fault because, silly me, I didn't just leave the interest only loan the way they wanted it: never paid down.  So they go right ahead and retroactively change three months worth of payments, pulling money from what I allotted to be principle pay down to pay for their mistake.  And the rest of those "corrections" on my statement right now are indecipherable, but I know they're costing me at least $800 so far.

 And finally you tell them what you want them to do, return my principle balance to what its supposed to be, and they say they can't help you, and transfer you again, and when you reach the end of that other rainbow?  That magical department your last representative told you would solve all your problems?  Guess what?  It does't exist.  You are back at the Customer Screw-ice Department with Jordan, who doesn't know how 3 plus 5 equals ten, but you're going to be charged for it.  With interest.