File this one under “U” for Uncool: After a woman transferred $50,000 over five days from her bank account to her mortgage lender to pay down her mortgage, somehow $10,000 of that money just… disappeared. Or so it seemed.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Maria Bertolo, a mother of five, planned to make sure her family’s finances were all in order after her husband died in February. She used $50K of his life insurance policy to pay Household Finance Corp., spreading the payments out after they told her they could only process $10K per day.

The money left her account in mid-April, but one payment was not credited to her mortgage. Not good, right?

Bertolo claims she called HFC more than six times, and was told every time that all payments had been processed but for some reason, one hadn’t been applied to her principal.

HFC’s customer service sent her to an agent in Virginia, with subsequent calls going through to India, with no one able to help Bertolo’s problem. The Chicago Tribune spoke to Kate Durham, a spokeswoman for HSBC, which owns HFC. Bertolo was finally contacted and told that the mysterious disappearing $10K had been found and applied to her mortgage balance.

“HFC cares about our customers,” Durham said in an e-mail to the paper. “If a customer believes an error has been made, we act quickly to address any concerns and provide resolution.”

Needless to say, Bertolo is relieved.

“I’m much, much better,” she said. “I was at the end of my rope.”
Mortgage payment mysteriously disappears [Chicago Tribune]

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