My DH and I recently got married and within a few weeks I saw on our state court records that his loan company had filed foreclosure on his home. Since this was the home that I just moved into, I was understably distraught. My DH said he had been fighting with the new loan servicer for quite some time because they claimed he was 2 payments behind since they began servicing the loan. He claims he made those payments to the previous lender. Anyway, after all the late fees, "property preservation fees", attorney fees, and misc. fees that they refuse to explain it cost us a little over $6,000 to make this foreclosure go away. I spent hours on the phone with this company and sent numerous letters over a 2 week period trying to get them to even tell me the full amount due to bring the loan current since we only had 20 days to respond to the foreclosure. By the way, the 2 past due payments only totaled $908. I wish my DH would have paid it months ago and fought it later! It would have saved us $5K. Anyway, that's over and done with. At least our home is safe and we are current AND my DH gave me full authority to handle ALL of the finances. ;-) He admits to severe anxiety regarding finances and trusts me to handle it.
So, on to my question. The previous lender was Sovereign. I sent them this letter on 6/10/08 after spending an hour or so on the phone with them.
Consumer Research Department
Via fax: (610)-988-1685
Dear Consumer Research Department:
Per my transunion credit report, Sovereign sold my 1st mortgage loan to Aurora Loan Services and closed my account on 03/2007. My records indicate that I made payment to Sovereign in February and March 2007 and began paying Aurora Loan Services in April 2007. However, Aurora Loan Services maintains that I should have begun my payments to them in February 2007 and have now put my loan in default due to excess late fees and non-payment for the 2 months in question. They have begun the Foreclosure process on my home.
Please immediately review your records and provide to me a detailed transaction history of payments and balances for at least the last 6 months that Sovereign owned this loan. Also, please provide the date of the sale to Aurora Loan Services. Please fax this to (xxx) xxx-xxxx as soon as possible.
I called your mortgage services department today and they were unable to locate my loan by my ssn or the loan number shown on my credit report. I have copied the information from my credit report below. The last 4 digits of my SSN are xxxx.
Please accept this letter as full authorization to speak to my wife, (myfico5378) regarding this account and provide her with any information that she may request. Should you need additional information to expedite my request, please contact me at (xxx) xxx-xxxx.
Sincerely,
(myfico5378's DH)
I got a letter in the mail that gave me the correct account number and said that if we wanted them to research the payments and provide us with any account history, we would have to pay them $20. Is this allowed??? They are reporting 1 30 day late on his credit reports. I disputed with the CRA, but they verified. Are they actually allowed to charge us to verify information that they reported to a CRA and sent to the new loan company?
I thought about letting this go now that the house is safe, but I really feel that if they are going to charge me thousands of dollars and ruin my credit, they should have to prove their claims! The new loan company, Aurora, is still reporting the account 60 days past due even though they received full payment over a month ago and their website shows we are current. I disputed that with the CRA and they verified also. 
Yes, I think they CAN. Most financial institutions charge a fee for "researching" an account history -- though that's usually in situations where a complaint of fraud or theft is involved.
We had a case where we had overpaid a medical office (to the tune of $350) over a period of two years and since the issue dated back further than the "normal" 4 statements, we had to pay for the research. But to us, $25 (what we paid in research and photocopying fees) was worth it to get our $350 back (actually, we only got it in the form of "office credits," but still ....).
There was another time that my MIL insisted that we paid next to nothing to move her near us (she even went so far as to call the movers pretending she was ME to find out how much we paid!) ... she tossed it in my hubby's face time and again that we paid nil on her move. So finally, just to shut her up, I went and had our bank research the four months we paid out on her move ... $25 later, I had sweet, sweet, silence.
So, I think since I'm pretty sure that they CAN do that (though I'll bet that if they find that it's THEIR fault, not only will you get the fee back, but you can threaten to sue for damages since they would have obviously charged you NONappropriate fees, but also they would have violated the FCRA in terms of accurate reporting!!
So, I'd consider the $20 an investment in peace of mind and overall "hand" with the mortgage company!!
We had a case where we had overpaid a medical office (to the tune of $350) over a period of two years and since the issue dated back further than the "normal" 4 statements, we had to pay for the research. But to us, $25 (what we paid in research and photocopying fees) was worth it to get our $350 back (actually, we only got it in the form of "office credits," but still ....).
There was another time that my MIL insisted that we paid next to nothing to move her near us (she even went so far as to call the movers pretending she was ME to find out how much we paid!) ... she tossed it in my hubby's face time and again that we paid nil on her move. So finally, just to shut her up, I went and had our bank research the four months we paid out on her move ... $25 later, I had sweet, sweet, silence.
So, I think since I'm pretty sure that they CAN do that (though I'll bet that if they find that it's THEIR fault, not only will you get the fee back, but you can threaten to sue for damages since they would have obviously charged you NONappropriate fees, but also they would have violated the FCRA in terms of accurate reporting!!
So, I'd consider the $20 an investment in peace of mind and overall "hand" with the mortgage company!!