CitiMortgage

On [protected] we offered full price on an "approved short sale" home whose mortgage was apparently held by CitiMortgage. For eight (8) months we have waited for an answer from this lender without knowing why there was such a hold up in the process. The first week of August 2014 we finally receive word that the lender has now decided, after having this property listed for over 400 days with an "approved short sale", that they want to get more money for the property. Our contract offer is now deemed not acceptable and we are informed they want $11, 500 more for this property. Why did it take 8 long months for them to decide on more money and why in the first place was a listing allowed to state "approved short sale" when clearly it was NOT. I believe this transaction to have been grossly unethical and underhanded on their part. I would never do business with this company and certainly would not recommend any dealings with them.

Citimortgage image is that of helping home owners to keep our homes. The employees lose documents, purposely mislead customers, lie to them, disconnect phone calls, give different answers each time a call is received inquiring about the status of your loan modification etc. Employees that attempt to truley assist customers by assisting them with options, get fired or called out by their supervisors. The CEO and many employees of power are from India. Many Citi jobs in America have been outsourced to India. The government gave bail out money to large banks and placed quidelines on them. Where is the agencies assisgned to audit Citimortgage? Unbelievable! Thousands are now homeless because of Big Bank greed at taxpayers expense.

Refinanced my existing CitiMortgage thru a broker, hoping to get away from Citi (overall company, not just mortgage arm), but alas, broker placed me with CitiMortgage. Closed with title company on 28May.
- Advised Citi to stop auto-payment on 26th, which they did, after initially telling me it was too late, for May 1st, as per broker.
- Citi sent the wrong amounts for paying off old mortgage, so had to re-sign several docs on 29th.
- Title companied funded on May 2.
- On May 10th, Citi sent me notification that my mortgage had been paid off, and that I was now responsible for escrow (insurance/taxes) - which is not what I asked to have setup.
- On May 20th, I rec'd notification that I owed them a May payment! No, I don't, since my new mortgage, according the paperwork I have starts on 01Jun08. I am reading this on 29May08, payday, when I am ready to pay bills.
- Called Citi (29May), and all they could say was "you owe us money". I tried to explain that I'm paid up to June 1st, via title company. Instead of listening to me, I was told that I needed to contact the title company.
- After thinking about it overnight, I realized they must have paid off the new mortgage, not the old mortgage. Made no sense, but it was the only answer.
- In the morning (30May), looked at all of the various bits of paperwork. (Note - No one has told me what my loan # is for the new mortgage.) Sure enough, the pay-off letter was for a loan# starting with 2005 that I have no record of. The old loan started with 2001. The letter stating I've not paid is for the 2001# loan.
- While all this is happening, I start getting mysterious phone calls from the 636 area code (Missouri), but they hang up, or the call converts to hold music, etc. - I never actually get to talk to anyone.
- Also while this is happening, I'm getting e-mails from Citi group saying essentially "you are one of our best customers, we're working hard to improve, we want to let you know what's going on". Uh-huh. The e-mails claim to want to let me know what's going on - yet they say *nothing*. I am none the wiser for reading them.
- A friend from my old office (who has my old extension) calls me to let me know someone from 636 area code called, but wouldn't identify themselves. Weird - same area code calling my house and hanging up! Is there a connection?
- I call Citi again - this time, I understand how to make them pay attention. I explain the situation. Again, I get "you owe us money". So I ask "what is the start date of that loan?" and I get the response: 2004. Next question: "Look up this other account, and tell me the start date of that mortgage". Answer: 2008. BINGO! Now the light bulb goes off on this thick-headed, un-cutomer oriented business.
- After leaving me on hold for an extended amount of time, they now tell me to fix it, by calling my title company. Hello! Anybody home? No, I'm not doing that. I, as calmly as possible, tell them "I've signed everything I have to, I've paid everything I have to - this is your problem, you people fix it."
- I was then transferred to another department where I had to explain the problem again. They put me on hold again, but finally come back and say they can fix it on their end, all should be fixed by 06Jun08, and in the meantime the new loan amount will come out on 02Jun08, with the correct escrow, and that they will retract the credit reporting sent in saying I was in a non-payment situation. They also said I will have paperwork to confirm all of above by around 12Jun08.
- Suddenly the mysterious area coded 636 phonecalls make sense. I look up Citi, and sure enough, the mortgage arm is based in...wait for it...Missouri!
- I call them back again (still 30May08) and ask them what phone #s they have for me...wrong, wrong, wrong. Get them updated. I ask why I can go thru two mortgages, with correct phone #s on all docs, and they don't have them updated in their records. I'm told "you can go on line and update them". One of us missed the point - and it wasn't me.
- I don't understand why, when they have my correct e-mail address, when they couldn't contact me at old phone#s, that they wouldn't e-mail me and say "we can't contact you, perhaps we have old phone#s, please call us". Note: I did get a communication saying "we've been trying to call you, but we seem to be getting mixed up with marketers". This was an unclear communication, which I did ignore, assuming they had nothing of value for me to hear.
- Now, on 31May08, I've reached the end of my patience with these people, thus sparking this complaint. I got a phone call this morning, telling me my May payment is still owing.
- I really tried to remain calm - but honestly - how much more must I bear? I told the women in a somewhat crusty tone that I don't owe them a cent, gave her the two tracking case #s from yesterday, told her to read them and call me if she had further questions, thank you very much and goodbye" at which point I disconnected.
- I actually feel a bit bad about being somewhat abrupt, because truly, their customer service people are very nice - that is the one bright spot at Citi - they have done a very good job of training their staff to manage irritated customers, and stay in control of the call, and remain cheerful thru the complaints, which is not at all easy to do. Too bad they aren't empowered to actually fix the problems, and the machinations behind the reps are poor.