I have a both my primary Mortgage, originated in 2002, with a refinance in 2013, as well as a 10 year old Home Equity Loan, with USAA Bank. I have not been happy—AT ALL—with USAA’s decision several years ago, to contract-out the “servicing” on the loan to “NationStar”, a subsidiary of “Mr. Cooper”. I have received absolutely terrible customer service from them. I have had MANY problems with them, more than once having to get USAA to intervene. They make mistakes and it takes so many, many calls, many, many transfers, etc, to try to get them to correct their own errors. They allocate payments incorrectly. For several years they had contradictory information on the monthly statements they send out (yes, I brought this up and pointed it out to both NationStar and USAA). It was well over a year later before I saw the statements corrected. They charge fees inappropriately. When I literally found MATH errors—I’m talking addition and subtraction errors, folks—on my statements, the only response I can get, after several reps tell me “oh, the computer does that”, or “I don’t know why the computer would do that” (I sure the heck know why: garbage in, garbage out—programming errors!), I finally get a supervisor who tells me the proverbial “I’ll send a message to the appropriate unit and they’ll look into it”. If they were honest they might as well say, “thank you for bringing this to our attention, I will promptly route this to File 13!” (for those not aware, File 13 is the garbage can). They do not follow-up when they say they will, or should. It can be Impossible to get them to call you back, or talk to a rep who has the knowledge, ability and authority to correct any errors or just do the right thing. I could go on. I have told reps from USAA when I have had to get them to intervene, and even put in writing in a complaint about NationStar, that when the contract with NationStar expires, I really, really hope USAA resumes the servicing of their own mortgages, or at least finds a company with integrity, who has an attentive, efficient, accountable and competent customer service department, to no avail. I have told USAA that I am honestly surprised that they would select such a company, with so many complaints and problems (just do an internet search…). Over the years, I’ve had to learn to live with dealing with NationStar, but at least I had the comfort of knowing that USAA was there to intervene when I could not get anywhere with them.
Now it’s May, 2022, and I find out that USAA has SOLD all of our mortgage loans (and eventually the home equity loans as well), to NationStar’s parent company: Mr. Cooper! I am so disappointed, even upset, that USAA would do this. To make matters worse, when I went to make my mortgage payment yesterday, I find that I can no longer use the USAA website to do so. When I asked it that functionality would be restored in the future, I was told “no, USAA no longer has anything to do with your loan”. Not only that, but ALL historical info on the loan is GONE—no way to access it. USAA did not even give us the curtesy of advanced notice of this, so we could have printed out the info if we wanted to. Lord knows we may need it for future problems with Mr. Cooper, who I have no doubt will tell us they have zero access to anything that has ever happened with our loans in the past. I feel really, really sorry for anyone who is in the middle of getting anything resolved with NationStar right now. I took me OVER A YEAR, even with USAA’s intervention, to resolve one of my problems (match more serious than the incorrect/inaccurate billing statements). I can’t even tell you how many hours I spent on the phone about it. I eventually resorted to putting it all in writing, partly due to frustration, and partly because I wanted a record of it (note to all: if you have any problems with your loan, keep GOOD records, including the date, time, name, and job title of EVERY person you talk to, what questions you asked and what answers you got—you may need it!). In fact, after a frustrating YEAR of dealing with them, I finally resulted to calling a Texas state agency, and researching my options with federal banking regulatory agencies, so I was informed of my rights and their responsibilities, and making both USAA and NationStar aware of this fact, before my issue was finally resolved.
I am beyond disappointed with USAA’s decision, and irritated that I will be on my own going forward when dealing with “Mr. Cooper”. As an Air Force brat, who has lived in San Antonio, Texas for over 40 years, with both a Mother-in -Law and spouse who worked for USAA in the past (the “good old days”), boy, do I miss General McDermott and his leadership and philosophy. USAA has not been the same since he left, and their questionable decision-making seems to have accelerated in the past few years.
