Class Action Alleges PHH Mortgage, NewRez Refuse to Provide Copies of Phone Call Recordings, Transcripts

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A proposed class action claims PHH Mortgage and NewRez, LLC have ignored their statutory duty to adequately fulfill mortgage borrowers’ requests for certain account information.

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According to the 12-page lawsuit, PHH Mortgage and NewRez have demonstrated a “pattern or practice” of denying “possibly hundreds if not thousands” of requests for copies of audio recordings or transcripts of phone calls between consumers and the defendants, even though the companies could “easily” retrieve the information through reasonable business efforts.

The case relays that the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) requires loan servicers to respond within 30 days to a qualified written request for information, either by providing the requested information or conducting a “reasonable search” for the information and providing the borrower with a written notification explaining why the data is “not available.”

The plaintiffs, two Massachusetts consumers, say they mailed PHH Mortgage a Notice of Error and Request on July 29, 2022 asking for several documents, including a “copy of any and all recordings” and a “copy of any and all transcripts of conversations with [Plaintiffs] or any other person concerning [Plaintiffs’] account.”

On August 26, the plaintiffs’ counsel received a response from PHH Mortgage that failed to provide any of the requested recordings, the suit says. The plaintiffs then sent through counsel a second letter on November 29, 2022 specifically requesting the phone call recordings and transcripts.

In a letter dated January 5 of this year, PHH Mortgage informed the plaintiffs’ counsel that it was unable to provide “any details related to the recorded calls, texts, notes or transcripts as requested” because “[a]ll communications with the vendors, collection notes, recorded calls and notes, transcripts of phone call [sic] are for internal purposes only,” the filing relays.

Per the suit, PHH Mortgage and NewRez have “no proper basis” to conclude that telephone recordings and transcripts are “for internal purposes only.” Moreover, the complaint points out that the defendants’ blanket refusal to produce the requested information appears to be a uniform template response sent to many consumers, indicating a pattern of non-compliance with RESPA.

The lawsuit looks to cover all individuals in the United States who have or have had a mortgage loan with PHH Mortgage and NewRez and, within the past three years, have requested copies of audio recordings or transcripts of phone calls between themselves and the loan servicers and who have subsequently been denied access to those audio recordings by PHH Mortgage and NewRez.

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