My husband and I went through financial difficulties last year around October. Both our cars broke down, which we need for work, then I lost my income and his mother needed our assistance. Before we knew it, we were flat broke and missed our November mortgage payment. We picked back up in December and made timely, regular, full payments from Dec through now. We kept contacting the mortgage company about how to pay the payment, if we could pay additional funds on our mortgage payment every month, and they said the only way we could pay was to pay it off in full, which had ballooned from a mortgage payment of $1278 to $3600 (this was the figure I was given February 1st, so it accrued almost $2000 in late fees over three months?). We didn't have that amount up front and so we were saving, but every month we saved, the figure got higher because of late fees.
We ended up having to get outside relief for the amount, which was now almost five thousand dollars. The organization sent a check directly to the mortgage company, but we received our next statement saying we owed over two thousand. We called Chase and they said now our mortgage was higher because we had no funds in escrow (where did those funds go?) and that our homeowner's insurance went up (almost doubled, with no claims or anything!). We canceled our insurance and went with Liberty Mutual which put our yearly mortgage premium at just over a thousand, which SHOULD have decreased our mortgage payment to $1100 almost exactly.
We receive our next statement saying our next payment was $1635. Not only did they jack up our regular payment (and we have a fixed 30-yr, NOT an ARM), they put some random figure in our escrow account and no one we speak to can account for the random escrow amounts (which have varied on every monthly statement for the past five months... We pulled them all out and looked). We received a refund check for the previous homeowner's insurance company in the amount of $2471. When we called Chase today, they said our "escrow account was negative $2114 because we covered the rest of your insurance in order for you to be able to cancel." What?!?! This doesn't even make sense. So we get the refund check, we agree to send on the $2114 to bring our escrow account "even", which will bring our mortgage payment down to the estimated payment of around $1100.
So after hanging up on that call, my husband and I decide to call Chase right back, talk to a different representative, and see what happened. This time, the figure for the escrow account was supposedly POSITIVE (not negative) $635, therefore, we should only cover the remainder of the year of the insurance payment, yet our monthly mortgage payment would be over $1200 and the "customer service representative" couldn't explain why.
This company is so jacked up it would be funny if they weren't screwing with people's livelihoods. This is our money, and our homes, and Chase already scared us into compliance by sending us an intent to foreclose from missing one payment in November (even though we paid EVERY following payment on time and in full). So now we are busting our butts to comply with everything, and yet it seems all they are doing is demanding more and more and more money. We are very close to going to a professional, having them look at our statements and see if we were overcharged/ripped off, and hiring an attorney to fight this crap. My husband is in the military, so if he were to get foreclosed, it would affect his military career as a financial judgment is a violation of the UCMJ and he would be punished by the military, as well. Double whammy. So we have been really trying to do everything we have to do and sending every spare penny we have to this mortgage company trying to save our butts, but it seems that they have smelled fear with us and are feeding on it.
I hope someone reads this who is considering a mortgage with Chase and RUNS THE OTHER WAY! There's a reason they have a BBB rating of F! F! There ARE mortgage companies out there with great BBB ratings... Go through them! As soon as we are clear of all this mess, we are refinancing this house with a reputable company!
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