The government-backed mortgage giant Fannie Mae is suing multiple home warranty providers, accusing them of misusing its service mark in “fraudulent” mailers sent to borrowers urging them to buy their products.
Fannie Mae, whose congressionally-mandated mission is to purchase mortgages from lenders and bundle them into securities for investors to boost the availability of funds for home loans, filed the complaint in the Northern District of Ohio last week, naming as defendants four companies: Warranty Global Group, Inc., and U.S. Home Guard, LLC, both headquartered in Texas; Ohio’s Superior Home Protection, LLC, and Miami-based Oasis Home Protection, LLC.
According to the 35-page lawsuit reviewed by Realtor.com®, beginning in or around July 2023 and continuing through the present, the four home warranty companies engaged in an alleged “coordinated nationwide campaign” of mailing unsolicited letters emblazoned with the registered service mark “FANNIE MAE” without the government-sponsored enterprise’s permission.
The goal of the campaign, contends the lawsuit, has been to create “a false impression of affiliation, sponsorship or endorsement by Fannie Mae.”
Additionally, the plaintiff’s lawyers argue that the marketing materials that have been going out to borrowers were “designed to create a false sense of urgency and compel immediate consumer action.”
The court filing includes a selection of official-looking letters that were allegedly mailed to consumers by the defendants, complete with bar codes. These mailers, attached as evidence exhibits, contain phrases like “Time Sensitive,” “Immediate Response Requested,” and “Final Notice.”
In some of the missives, the name of the home warranty carrier appears in fine print as a “footnote,” while in others it is absent altogether, even as “Fannie Mae” is printed in capital letters
One of the mailers, sent by Superior Home Protection in March 2025, reads in part: “This notice is to inform you that the property’s home warranty at [redacted] Secured by FANNIE MAE MORTGAGE, may be expiring or may have already expired.”
The complaint notes that Fannie Mae does not require borrowers whose mortgages are sold to it to purchase a home warranty.
The lawsuit claims the defendants’ conduct “has caused actual consumer confusion, has diluted and tarnished the FANNIE MAE mark, and has resulted in significant harm to Fannie Mae’s goodwill and reputation.”
According to the filing, Texas-based Warranty Global was “the architect of the fraudulent marketing campaign” that has commissioned the other companies to carry out the initial consumer solicitations with the Fannie Mae mark prominently displayed.
As a result of these actions, the complaint states, Fannie Mae has received “multiple inquiries from confused consumers who believed the solicitations came from Fannie Mae or were endorsed by Fannie Mae.”
According to the Better Business Bureau site, Warranty Global has raked up more than 50 complaints from consumers over the past three years.
One recent complaint from May 2025 claims that a homeowner was “conned” into purchasing a $1,400 home warranty they did not need after getting letters and phone calls from the provider.
Another allegation, dated March 2025, accuses Warranty Global of sending the homeowner “scam letters pretending to be from my mortgage company,” with the lender information “displayed prominently, at the top of the document as well as through the window on the envelope as if they were the sender.”
Meanwhile, Superior Home Protection has amassed 139 complaints in the last three years related to their mailers demanding urgent action.
Realtor.com reached out to all four home warranty providers named as defendants in the lawsuit, but no representatives were immediately available for comment.
Fannie Mae has also not responded to an inquiry seeking comment on its legal action.
Fannie’s lawsuit alleges seven counts, including service mark infringement, false endorsement, civil conspiracy, and unjust enrichment.
Attorneys representing Fannie have filed a temporary restraining order against the defendants. They are also seeking a court injunction that would force the companies to stop using Fannie Mae’s service mark, destroy all the marketing materials in question, as well as the awarding of damages and attorney’s fees through a jury trial.