We are caught in a deeply unpleasant mess with CitiBank. For 20 years, my father-in-law held a home equity line of credit with CitiBank, along with a very sizable bank account. The credit line had been paid off in full long before he passed away in April. While his condo was being sold, a title search showed this mortgage as still open. My husband and his brother were told the closing would wait until the bank issued a closure letter.
My husband began this ordeal on July 12 by passing every required document to the nearby CitiBank branch in Dania Beach. They promised him the paperwork and the closure letter would take one week at most. Now it is July 24, and because of this letter the closing has been postponed three times in total.
The first postponement came about because nobody mentioned that a processing fee had to be submitted with the death certificate and the closure letter request. That fee was a whopping $10. A customer service representative yelled at my husband over the phone until he slammed the receiver down and left the room. I took the phone, and she hung up on me. When I called again, a different representative named Aldo was helpful and said the letter could be rushed on Monday, so we would have it Tuesday. My husband visited the branch, paid the fee, and was promised the letter would be ready Tuesday, July 23. With the help of the local bank manager, we did everything asked of us to speed things up.
The next excuse was that the death certificate had never arrived. The branch manager had faxed it and kept the fax confirmation, but customer service insisted this was not sufficient, so she had to write a letter stating that she had viewed the original death certificate. Both of us have spoken with CitiMortgage, and it is customer service at its absolute worst.
At 11 am today, my husband was told the letter was sitting by the fax machine, ready to go out. Yet at 4 pm, after work, I went in and was told the letter could not be issued until the account was closed and visible in the system, which would not refresh until 7 am central time tomorrow. It is now 5 pm, and once again we have missed our closing. Saying I am furious would be putting it mildly. My husband is sick with worry and frustration. I learned that the supervisor in charge could not be reached because his voicemail was full, that he was out of the office, and that nobody ranks above him. So I am doing the only thing left to me, which is bringing this to social media and consumer complaint forums.
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