Approximately two years ago I received a business card through Citibank, a Citi Mid Prime Business Card. The company sent me a 0% offer via the mail, and I inquired and accepted the card, which had a balance of $5000. I used the card more quickly because I transferred some balances to it.
Approximately a year later we refinanced our home to pay off a number of credit cards. Sadly, we were considering bankruptcy at that time; however, the lawyers we spoke with said we had too much equity and assets for that to be feasible. We reluctantly agreed to a refinance that increased our rate by 2% and our payment by $850 a month.
The new situation required us to use our existing credit lines more often to make sure we could still make our house payment on a now $360K home loan. We were sort of hoodwinked into a higher rate at closing than we expected, but we still felt that was the only feasible decision.
Unfortunately, my spouse and I have credit cards with Citi, Chase and Bank of America as well as some retail cards. We have entered repayment arrangements with most of them and are still hoping to get a rate reduction on our home to avoid foreclosure. Citimortgage also holds our home loan, which is now also behind.
We used all of our available 401k to pay off or settle with as many cards as possible. Some of them agreed to settle for less than the whole balance. The Citibank card has not only refused to settle for $5297 but has not offered any payment arrangements outside of once asking for payments starting at $1500 each.
This created a situation we could in no way remedy or justify remedying. They have a lawyer who has threatened that they will garnish my wages, and now they are threatening to sue us and hold us responsible for court costs. Unfortunately, we have no means to justify payment to them in full since we do not have the money and have other cards with balances.
It should be noted that for quite some time my card was charged with some fraudulent charges (although these are over 60 days and amount to less than $200). Citi, for some reason unknown to me, feels I've done something intentional. This is not true, as Citi also sent me cards I never even used. But like many small business owners, once the credit markets went south, all my credit lines were taken away, with some of the cards jumping up and adding on interest rates and all kinds of fees.
The consequences for this one card in my business name, with Citibank taking such a hard line and making no reasonable arrangements for repayment, are to force us to incur legal costs and file bankruptcy. If we file bankruptcy, we would no longer be eligible for the program to help us lower the interest rate (to whom we also paid an escrow payment and are waiting for Citimortgage to accept).
The results look dismal because we have been in our home for 15 years and have children in HS and College. I'm really uncertain what to do, but I am certain that Citibank is acting with malicious intent by not making any payment arrangements or concessions and demanding payment in full.
We love this home and it is in a good location. We have had some extremely vile incidents which the community of legal representatives seems to overlook, even undermine.
It should be noted that Pro Consulting Services out of Houston, Texas is now handling this account.
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