I refinanced my existing CitiMortgage loan through a broker, hoping to get away from Citi (the overall company, not just the mortgage arm), but alas, the broker placed me with CitiMortgage. I closed with the title company on 28May.
- I advised Citi to stop the auto-payment on the 26th, which they did, after initially telling me it was too late, for May 1st, as per the broker.
- Citi sent the wrong amounts for paying off the old mortgage, so I had to re-sign several docs on the 29th.
- The title company 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 set up.
- On May 20th, I received notification that I owed them a May payment! No, I don't, since my new mortgage, according to the paperwork I have, starts on 01Jun08. I am reading this on 29May08, payday, when I am ready to pay bills.
- I 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 the 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. It made no sense, but it was the only answer.
- In the morning (30May), I 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 started 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) called me to let me know someone from the 636 area code called but wouldn't identify themselves. Weird, the same area code calling my house and hanging up! Is there a connection?
- I called Citi again, and this time I understood how to make them pay attention. I explained the situation. Again, I got "you owe us money." So I asked, "What is the start date of that loan?" and I got 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-customer-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, told 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 came back and said 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 the above by around 12Jun08.
- Suddenly the mysterious 636 area code phone calls make sense. I looked up Citi, and sure enough, the mortgage arm is based in... wait for it... Missouri!
- I called them back again (still 30May08) and asked them what phone numbers they have for me. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Get them updated. I asked why I can go through two mortgages, with correct phone numbers on all docs, and they don't have them updated in their records. I'm told "you can go online 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 and couldn't contact me at old phone numbers, they wouldn't e-mail me and say "we can't contact you, perhaps we have old phone numbers, 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 woman in a somewhat crusty tone that I don't owe them a cent, gave her the two tracking case numbers from yesterday, told her to read them and call me if she had further questions, said "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, stay in control of the call, and remain cheerful through 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.
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