CitiFinancial Servicing review: Citifinancial auto breaks the law with reposessions 60

Dear Sir/Madam,

This is with reference to the above (LAC no. [protected]),
I have purchased a two wheeler in Sep 2007 on finance of Rs. 50000/- from Citifinancial Consumer Finance Ind. Ltd.
This loan was for the tenor of 24 months with an EMI of Rs. 2566/- p.m.
As per the finance date and he tenor, my last emi was on October 2009 which was already paid.
To the shock of mine the local collection agents contacted me stating that my loan tenor is 36 months instead of 24 months.
I have constantly told the local agencies to provide me with the loan statement for me to verify, but they failed to do so.
Now they are harassing to take away the two wheeler.
I would request the authority to kindly look into the matter and revert back at the earliest.

Thanks & Regards,
Yusuf Agwan,
S/o Ismail Agwan.
+[protected]
yusuf.agwan@gmail.com

Had my car repoed two days after paying the balance to zero. Paid the car off during a business day but was repoed at 2am on a weekend. The Repo man was unable to contact the company. :( I've noticed in several (other) ways that Citi's departments do not speak to each other. One person will make a deal with you, and another will not have that information...

"If you people would pay your bills you would have no problems. Citifinancial took your word that you would pay for the vehicle and you are not. Why should they care if you lost your job, I wouldn't - I would just want my money you owe me. You should have thought about losing your job before you made the purchase. You deadbeats should have taken the insurance at time of sale that says they will make your payments in the event you lose your job or get layed off. Don't blame the bank for your terrible financing. Only spend what you can afford idiots."

Well...it looks like someone besides Citi can kiss my a$$. You know what they say about people in glass houses right? I am not in default with Citi, pay all my bills on time-and still think they're a terrible company. They have zero professional ethics and this story doesn't shock me one bit.

Okay, so here we go again. Citifinacial told me that if after the 6 month amendment I still needed a lower payment, they could redo my loan and add on a couple of more years making my payments lower.
Well I called and told them I needed to redo my loan and am accepting their offer now. Guess what, none of the reps I spoke to last week knew what I am talking about. I recognized a couple of the voices of the reps and they still, do not know.
According to them now, what I got was not an amendment it is called something else and in order to get an amendment I have to be a month late, but does not apply now because they will not redo my loan for another year! What?!
When I applied for what they called the amendment last time, they said that I had to be current and not late. What in the world is wrong with those people!

Oh yeah, they have been calling me a week or more before my payment is due asking me for a payment or if I will be on time with my payment. I'm not even late and they are calling me?
Good grief! They are the worse company ever! I think what they are doing must be criminal.

Its interesting to hear some of the complaints about the treatment of this company. However, I think we need to realize that our financial institutions do NOT owe us anything. It would be no different if you had someone who was responsible for paying you each month for something and they didn't pay. You/Your Company depends on those individuals who you loan money to to repay you in a timely fashion. However, when we run into hardships, it is an expectation that the company who loans us money to work with us. I've read most of the complaints and am surprised at some of the comments. The bottom line, if you can no longer afford it (for whatever the reason or circumstances are) then you have to make a harsh decision. I have found, in most cases, that people are not mistreated when they speak to financial institutions, they are frustrated by their circumstances and left feeling rejected and helpless because they have no other alternatives. In most cases (not all), these lending institutions provide financing for people who have LESS THAN PERFECT credit. As a result, you are charged higher interest rates, etc. WE HAVE TO BECOME MORE FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE AND NOT LIVE BEYOND OUR MEANS and then expect the financial institutions to WORK WITH US because we've never been late. If you only knew how many times I've heard that and then when I see the payment history, most, if not all of the payments are late.

I don't think any company would be UNWILLING to assist a client in maintaining their financial obligations. But, you must remember 3 things:

1) The company doesn't OWE you anything. You owe them! That does NOT give way for anyone to be treated RUDELY, but we have to keep that at the forefront of our conversation. If they provide you with assistance, GREAT, but they are under no LEGAL obligation to do so (especially if you don't meet the criteria).

2) If you are offered assistance, it has certain criteria and approvals that must be followed. More than likely, the person you are speaking with on the phone is NOT the person who approves or has the authority to approve. Therefore, they can't promise you anything but explain to you the types of options you may have for your situation.

3) Someone posted that they were told "If you pay your payments on time for a year, you can refinance for a lower interest rate." I can assure you, that did NOT come from the company who financed your vehicle. That came from the CAR DEALER/SALES PERSON who's only interest was to get you to sign that document and take possession of the vehicle.

a) Before you sign for a vehicle, contact the lending institution on your own and ask questions.

b) GET ANYTHING IN WRITING. If a person refuses to put it in writing on company letterhead, then its likely that what they are telling you is NOT true. If its in writing, its a legal binding contract.

c) Make sure you read everything in your contract, not just how much you have to pay each month! One of the biggest mistakes people make is they don't READ all of the contract, they don't ask questions about things they don't understand because they don't want to appear ignorant. However, if you were told that a company was going to provide you with financing, I would ask for a number to that company BEFORE YOU SIGN A CONTRACT and call them directly to ensure the information being provided by the CAR SALESMAN is correct and accurate. You have to understand that the dealerships have no direct relationship with the lenders. Its whoever responds with an offer the fastest...

My final comment would be this: We MUST stop living BEYOND our means. Even if everything is going great and you are able to afford everything...we never stop to consider if any of things were to happen to you and/or your spouse: what if I am unable to work? What if I lose my job? What if they downsize? What if they close? What if our pay is decreased temporarily or permanently...will we be able to survive financially.

These are tough questions, but questions that MUST be answered to protect your financial stability. Living from pay check to pay check is NOT acceptable anymore. Before you embark on any large purchase, weigh your options. Make sure you have at least 3 months of expenses (6 months preferably) in a savings account...and by all means, CLEAN UP YOUR CREDIT IF ITS DAMAGED.

Its not easy to file bankruptcy anymore...and its a LOT MORE COSTLY! If you can't afford it, accept that your financial situation has changed and you have to adjust accordingly. Losing a car is far less expensive than LOSING YOUR MIND! A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE!

ok, here's one for you all... I contacted CitiFi to get my payoff. They said it was good for 10 days. I the traded my car in and the company was to pay off the amount owed to CitFi. Two days after my original loan due date and after the 10 day payoff time, CitFi calls me for payment. I told them I traded it in, they need to contact the place I traded the car in. They said ok, but that I needed to also call. I did, but it was late in the day on Friday and the finance office that handles the payoff payments was closed and that I needed to call on Monday. Before I could call, CitiFi calls me asking if I talked to them last Friday. I told them I would in a little bit today. I am at work, I am busy at this time. The guy, Mr. Johnson, was very rude and said I didn't care enough to take care of this and that this is being reported to the credit agency today. I told him that would take care of it but that I am in the middle of a problem at work and I would do it later. He told me again that I didn't care and that I probably was just going to let the car go and that they might have to come get the car as they have no proof that I traded it in. I laughed and told him to go ahead and get it from the dealer. He asked me if I needed to talk to his manager. I told him no, that I am in the middle of a problem. He said, so you don't care about this? I told him that at this moment I don't cause I don't have time to talk. He then started going on about that I should still make the car payments until they receive the check from the dealer. He kept going on and on till I interrupted him and told him to let me speak to his manager. I told her the same thing that I will call the dealer as soon as I get a free moment. She was fine with that... So I get ahold of the finance office of my car dealer. They do some research and call me the next day. And guess what? The check they sent to CitiFi had been cashed within the 10 day payoff period. So here they are being rude to me, basically calling me a liar when the check had already been cashed. I sent them a copy of the canceled check and they are searching for it... still... The check was cashed on May 28th, They called on June 11th. They are still looking for the check. Even though I call them everyday to check on it. They still call me everyday with the same rude tone as day one!

I just got off the phone with CitiFinancial. All I can do is laugh, I received a letter by UPS airmail yesterday stating that if full payment of 511.34 is not received by today (June 30, 2010) they will repossess the vehicle. That includes a past due amount of 161.25 and the payment that was due on June 10th for 350.09. I explained to the man who answered the phone that today I currently had no money in my account but that Friday (July 2, 2010 I will be able to pay half of the total due and then The following Thursday (July 8, 2010) I would bring the account current.

He said that was unacceptable and in order to keep the vehicle I will need to pay the 511.34 today. I calmly explained to him that I couldn't pay it today because the money isn't in my account, he told me that he can post a check today but it won't clear my account for another 24 to 48 hours. What!? I asked him if he was suggesting I authorize a bad check and he told me...well it probably won't clear until Friday anyways. I told him that obviously nothing can be done so I guess I'll load up on miles until they come and get it. I am going to call again on Friday and see if I can get another response.

I have also recived threaten mesages from citi about my wife car when she got behind after she got sick with breast cancer .

having same issues with citifinancial. was actually told the other day that our outcome of our situation with them 'depends on who we talk to' -- so good to know that not even their employees are on the same page. i HATE this company with a passion. would like to know who i can complain to that is higher up that oversees these companies!

For the people who are so ignorant as to make the comments about the financial institutions not being there to help you, let me tell you MY situation with Citi. First of all up until recently they have been great to work with. However, my son was diagnosed with Cancer in March and therefor I am UNABLE to work due to hospital visits, treatments, etc. Believe me I WOULD work and have always worked since I was 15! I have NEVER been late on a payment or behind in the two years I have had this loan. With that said, I am trying to get the TRPP as my income has been reduced to half and I have been given the runaround since MAY! I have applied twice and was told by a "supervisor" on both occasions that my application would be approved. Yet here it is almost September and still no approval. I am now 2 months behind and at one point I was told I did not make enough money to qualify for the reduced payments. Yet, they still expect me to make a full payment? What kind of sense is that? I have never asked for help on ANYTHING. I am a well-informed, responsible consumer that has now exhausted all $38, 000 of our savings due to medical bills. I have never been late on any bills until now and have almost perfect credit. So what does this say about the CitiCorp? They really don't care about their customers, their situations, or anything else but THEIR bottom line. I am now filing a complaint with the BBB, Consumer Affairs, and every other affiliation I can think of!

I agree with many of the folks in these comment blocks. citifinancial are crooks! I purchased a used vehicle back in 2006. the vehicle was a 2003 model and had about 21000 miles. I made 31/2 years of good and steady payments. when nthis economy took the steep nose dive back in 2009 I lost my employment. I was in the process of rebuilding my credit, and the dealership that I purchased the car from also hiked up my income so that I would be able to drive the vehicle off there lot tghat evening. (That was my first mistake). well needless to say, when I lost my job, I immediately contacted citifiancial to see if they can lower my payments just for about 2-3 months till I got back on my feet. (Mind you I was tapping into my savings to make ends meet.) Citifiancial told me that they couldnt help me unless I made 6 consecutive additonal payments before they can consider my case. Now remember I never missed a payment or was never late in 31/2 years. I was heated because I felt that I was a good customer as they kept telling me. And now they cant help me? WTF? Well as my savings depleted, and I couldnt afford to make my payment, I was threatgend with repossession notices if I didnt make my montly payments on time. I called numerous times and spoke with many different customer service reps, just to hear the same crap. we cant help you. So about a month and 1/2 of not making a payment, my fiance and I where sitting in the living room, and I heard a truck on my driveway. the [censor] didnt even come knocking on my door. He just started to hook up to my car and was about to start driving away, until we ran outside and begged the man to let us remove the contents out of my vehicle. he waited til we emptied the car. after contacting citifiancial about this deboggle, they have the nerve to say that I was in default and tat they have the right to repo my car. In order for me to get my vehicle back I had to pay $1500.00 plus the towing fees. I was also told that if I couldnt pay that amount that day that my vehicle would be sold at auction. I contacted the better business bureau, and they informed me that citi had to let me know where the auction was to take place and offer me the opportunity to buy my car back. I wasnt offered any of those options. The sold my car needless to say and now they have the nerve to send me a letter stating that I still owe them the remainder of my loan. Boy they have some big cohones!They are crooks. For anyone thinking about purchasing a vehicle or just taking a loan, stay away from citifiancial!

They are a poor excuse of a company, I woke up this morning to find out that i no longer have a car. There was no notice. Yes i agree that i may have missed a payment or so, but when i tried to contact them i found out that they sold it to some company named Santar or something like that i went to the web site but could not find any contact info. i called them today and they said that I was 180 days non current on my loan and i told them that i made a payment in august, so that makes me a month behind. they also said that (i called two times today) the first lady said that I owe $2200.00 then i called like an hour later and a man told me that I owe $2800.00 how did it go up $600 in an hour. i calculated that total and it means that i am 9 months late. REALLY!. so I am not paying the nothing. I found a better place to do my business.

CitiFinancial is a separate company not associated with Citibank. Same name but NOT the same company. I know this because I asked them once on the phone. It is a Muslim owned company and that is why you get different answers. They dislike us that is a fact. They are not living up to their agreements. I would not finance with them anymore. People should complain to their state's attorney generals if you have a written agreement, that is the only way they will be mandated to comply. Good luck everyone and hope your situations turn around.

my mother went to richard for a loan richard borroed the full amount even though my mother only wanted enough to pay her husband off i asked her not to give richard the money to make this short richard has retired he did not put the ten thousand on the loan my mother cannot read nor write and i'm not much better but richard and i have been arguing for years about that money and he swore to me he put it back into her account but the new owner said that he would have filed that with the irs so please help tired of being taking for not having an education but my mother was an acoholic and get drunk and fight her and my stepdad one night they were fighting and i went in to help my mother and he locked me out i was beatenin on the door to get in and my arm went all the way end and down on the glass sticking up my dr said i would never be able to use it again but thank god ican do something my story why i didnt finish scool i have a metal plate and four screws in my head im 40 plus know plesae help

3 years ago, I got a loan for $3000.00 from CitiFinancial. This is by far the worst mistake of my life. They applied their interest to my initial balance, yes it was expensive, the total came out to over double what I borrowed, over $6000.00 and some change. When I initially got the loan, they were very polite about it and I bought "unemployment" insurance, well, what they fail to tell you that, the insurance does not cover you if you get fired. I've been paying on this loan and I STILL owe them more than what I borrowed! I looked at my statements and to my disgust, I find that more than 75% of my payments are going to FEES AND INTREST! This is highway robbery!

This is exactly what is wrong with this economy, greedy idiotic loan sharks like this robbing innocent people who just wanted a little help with life. So what if I'm late on some payments, that obviously means that I'm having financial troubles, but these idiots see that as an opportunity to make more money! How is that fair!? This should be illegal and these people need to be SHUT DOWN!

NEVER EVER get a loan from CitiFinancial! You will regret it for the rest of your life.

Since 5th October 2009 My wife and I have tried to pay our car payment over the phone. We would get a confirmation number and told everything has gone through. We made several attempts several reps. same answer. My wife contacted her bank only to find out that her bank has no record of Citi Financial processing the payment.

We had tried to set up our payment on auto pay. No luck. I have had no troubles in making a payment this way. Until Citi Financial Auto. It has been an uphill battle to get them to process our payment. My wife and I are trying to keep them from hurting our credit because of Citi Financial Auto.

My now ex-wife Erin and I obtained a auto loan, and when she moved out this last time in Feb 2006, she took the car and said she would make the payments and never did. I didn't know this until I started getting calls about the delinquent payments on my cell phone, because she changed the mailing address when she moved out, which forwarded all my mail to her new address. So when I got the first call, I called her and she sd she paid it, and I called Citifinancial Auto and asked for Customer Service and a Supervisor, but nobody would ever talk to me, because she put a block on the account so I could not view anything and told Citifinancial to work with her and not talk to me because I was court ordered to pay these payments, of which I was not and I mailed (Legal Family Court Documents) to prove my case, and you still would not talk to me, and yet you continued to call me on delinquent payments of which I could do nothing about and when you called me on my cell phone, you asked for Erin and when I told you this was my number, you would refuse to talk to me and hang up! Well this situation went on for over a year, and you even tried to repo the car from her, because back in Sept 2007 I believe the car was behind over $1500 and you went to her job to get the car, and she quickly got on the phone to the home office and worked out a payment arrangement with her, so the driver released the car back to her and she never, ever paid one penny to you and I then had to got to court and the Florence County Family Court Judge, had to demand that she pay the car in full, or return it and even then she tried to hang to it, and what happend! You Citifinancial Auto, only helped my now ex-wife Erin to ruin me, my credit and get back what she left of the car...HOPE YOUR SATISFIED, THANKS FOR NOTHING!

I would like to have the orginal leiu for my car from citifianical auto

I agree with everyone that Citi is a bunch of ###. I also had a loan with them for a vehicle that I defaulted on due to job loss. The default is completely my fault and I accept the fact that I owe this company the money I borrowed. But here is the funny part... The car was repo'd and I was able to borrow the money to get it back before it went to auction. Citi allowed me to catch up payments and pay all the fees associated with the repo and then go get my car back. A couple of months later I was late on another payment and wanted to straighten the account up and pay it up again. I called, a person told me the amount to pay to catch up and I made the payment over the phone. She said that the payment caught me up on the account and everything was fine. A few days later another person from Citi called and said that I was late on the last payment and my account had been charged off. I said that I had just made the past due payment up and that the last person I dealt with told me that everything was cleared up. This person then looked up my account, told me she saw where I had made the payment but told me my account had been charged off, was closed and I had to pay off the loan immediately (and the car was going to be repo'd). She said that the other person handling my account should not have accepted my payment and shouldn't have told me the account was current. I was shocked to say the least. I understand that I owe Citi for this loan and the language of the contract gives them wide latitude to cancel my loan and demand full payment immediately for any reason that they want but do they have the right to allow one agent to make an oral agreement over the phone, accept my payment and tell me the account is current and then have another agent call me a couple days later and tell me they should not have accepted the payment and the account is closed? I don't believe that is right and wanted an explanation. Of course not a single person there could tell me anything so I waited for the repo guy to show up. When he did, I refused to let him take it. I understand he could have gotten a warrant or something to force me to unblock the car so it could be towed but he didn't and left. Citi filed suit against me (I found a court date scheduled through the state court system website) but was never served with a summons. So I let it go not knowing what to do since they were unwilling to talk to me and didn't even bother to go through with their lawsuit against me. Finally after two years with a suit on the docket, the suit was dismissed by the court due to failure on Citi's part to do anything (move for judgement etc.). Now I have a vehicle that I can't sell, can't pay off and don't know what to do about the debt I owe (and is on my credit record). What a mess. And for all those that post on these sites that "you signed the agreement, it's your fault, you got what you deserved", I have a question: what agreement did Citi have with the government or it's taxpayers that when times are tough we will loan it $50 billion?

i have done business with local citifinancial offices and have had no problems with my due date now they have closed the local offices my due date is on 17th of each month i am now disabled and dont get paid till 28th of each month so i call to make a payment they send me to collections to some of the rudest people they wont change my due date from the 17th to 28th so they can collect that interest no one has tried to help me so from the 17th to the 28th of each month they will call and harrass even though i told them i dont get paid till 28th they wont work with me to have date changed; they told me i could only change my due date once i did that in 2009 well since 2010 i have been disabled and dont get paid but once a month so all i need is more stress and bad customer service to make me have more stress and anger to progress my ms wouldnt you think they would want to service disabled people with a little more respect i am still a human being i have explained thisto them but they dont listen what else can i do? i feel like they are degrading me and i am nothing the way they talk to me i wished supervisors or higher up would listen to my calls with them i have asked for supervisors and have been told they dont have any on hand what kind of company am i dealing with i hope they remember what goes around comes around treat disabled people with respect also