National City Mortgage NCM only opens their mail one day per week, causing homeowners to be hit with false late charges, and negative credit reports Dayton Ohio

When I wondered why my house payments were supposedly showing up late at National City Mortgage's payment facility in Los Angeles, I began to ask some questions.

To conduct my own experiment, I sent in two house payments via Priority Mail with Delivery Confirmation & Tracking. (This service cost me just under $2 at the post office.) Sure enough, NCM did not post the payments when received. Both were posted one or two days afterwards.

In a recorded phone call on Monday, September 29, 2003, I was told that the LA office only opens their mail one day per week.

I didn't think this could possible be true, so I called the NCM customer service line in Houston and asked them about it. They told me the same thing. LA only opens their mail one day per week. The same is true for the Boston office.

As a general rule, homeowners west of the Mississippi send their payments to LA. Those east of the Mississippi send their payments to Boston. These payment center addresses come printed in the payment books. A customer has no other address information beyond the address printed in the payment books.

Why would NCM do this? If they have over a million loans, why would they delay depositing all those thousands of checks which arrive each day? If the mail is delivering money to them approximately 25 days per month, why would they only open that mail on four of those 25 days? How would this scheme profit them?

The only logigal explanation is that they make more money by charging late fees to customers who are not actually late. In addition to being hit with fraudulent late fees, some consumers are no doubt hit with alleged late payment histories on their credit reports, which prevents them from getting the best interest rates on other loans.

This scheme amounts to a clear violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. I have filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, and would urge others to do their own experiments like I did and file against NCM, or any other mortgage company involved in this rip-off scheme.

James
Carrollton, Texas
U.S.A.