Citimortgage sold my mortgage to IBM Lender Bus Process Services in 11/2010; without any good business reason. I had several other Crecit relationships with them mastercar, home depot card, etc.; and my mortgage was not only current; but had never been paid late and I always sent the payment plus at least $50 monthly.
This new so called mortgage servic company, IBM LBPS; is actually in the busness of making it harder for you to pay your mortgage. They are a division of IBM the largest computer company in the world, but do not have the ability to process electronic payments in house. Instead you have to send your payment thru Western Union and pay a $5 fee which is then credited to your account as long as your payment is processed between the 1st and 5th of the month. How much of that $5 fee do they pass on to western union and how long do they hold the $5 to take advantage of the float before they issue the credit to your account?????
If you want to make your electronic payment before the due date, 1st of the month; they insist on charging you a $5 processing fee. They want to force you to make the payment either by mail or after the 1st so that they can hopefully charge you a late fee. You can also use your banks bill pay service; but again that is risky because that payment is not electronic, they actually mail a check which can be delayed and cause you to be billed a late fee which will have to be disputed.
The month of Feb 2011 they did not send me a bill for March, when I called to inquire on 2/21/11 they advised me that my bill along with 66, 000 other customers had been lost in a fire at a post office in Texas on 2/5/11. They had not yet mailed out a duplicate bill but told me I should recieve one by the 1st of March. I wanted to pay my bill using their online payment service but they would not waive the $5 fee, and told me I could either wait and pay it on the 1st of the month or mail it without a remittance document. When has anyone ever heard of a company not wanting to get their payment on time or early????
Mailing a payment without a remittance document, (sometimes called white mail), is dangerous because it could delay processing causing a late fee, waiting for the duplicate bill could also cause a late fee to be generated and then augued over. When I asked what government agency regulated them, I was was told that their was none. They advised me they were not a bank but that they were employed by Fannie Mae, the Federal government, to service my account. If they collect $5 from all 66, 000 customers whom they did not send a bill to this month that is an extra $330, 000.00 they will have stolen from hard working people. I have sent a complaint to the FTC; Federal Trade Commision, hopefully they will look into this larcenous behavior.