In February of this year, my previous mortgage broker (his name is Andy) contacted me to see if I wanted to refinance to get a lower interest rate. I, naturally, jumped at the chance to lower my interest rate by at least 2%.
The following day Andy called to tell me, "CitiMortgage has you 3 months past due on your mortgage."
My response was, "I have never been late with my mortgage and since I bank online, I have documentation to prove it."
"Well, " he said, "knowing you as I do, I didn't think so, but you are going to have to talk with Citimortgage to straighten out the problem. They (CitiMortgage) have reported this to the credit bureau and your credit rating is to low to refinance."
This conversation took place while I was driving home one day, and fortunately, for me I am on the East Coast. As soon as I got home, I called Citimortgage to straighten out the problem. Or should I say to start straightening out the problem.
Initially, they looked at my payment history that I was able to also pull up and told me that they would get back to me. The next call I got from CitiMortgage was from their collection agency division. I explained myself to her and after looking at my history, she informed me that she would have to talk with her supervisor about this and would get back to me.
Another week went by before I heard from Andy and I told him the status as I knew it. He told me, "Don't wait for them to call, you call them because more than likely the people at the other end of the line were just saying that to get me off the phone."
I called back and talked with a person by the name of Rebecca. I explained the situation to her, she pulled up my payment history, and immediately said, "I have never seen anything like this before." Of course, I thanked her.
In reviewing the record, she realized that there were a number of accounting errors on behalf of CitiMortgage. I asked, "Please remedy the situation and rectify my credit report so that I can refinance." While she didn't have the authority to do this, she did get an Account Executive on the phone who said, "I will look into it and if it justifiable, I will recalculate everything and send a report to the credit bureau in your behalf. This will take about 7-10 business days."
Two days later, Andy called and told me that my credit report/rating had gone up a 100 points because of CitiMortgage. Now, you would think that I would be grateful, but no!
My Mother use to say, "Always give people 3 strikes before they are out." And this was the third strike. Well, CitiMortgage you are O U T!!!
The first blunder was when the mortgage was initially sold to CitiMortgage by First Atlantic, they tacked on an escrow account. I had specifically requested not to have one so I could have a lower mortgage payment and my $1300 in taxes was not a burden for me.
The second faux pas was that they charged me with hazard insurance which I am not responsible for because I live in a condominium. When I first saw it on my statement, I contacted them and they requested a copy of the insurance documentation from the association. I obliged. Three months later and 2 hours on the phone with them, they finally resolved the situation.
I have now successfully refinanced, but not without of a lot of headaches. CitiMortgage should be held responsible for the harassment they have put me through in the past year and a half. Keep in mind that this is the short version of the story and I did keep notes.
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