Our house was hit with over 4 feet of water during Hurricane Ike. We lost around 98% of everything we owned and the house had to have everything ripped out until all that was left was the slab, the studs, the exterior brick, and the roof. Our family of 5, including 3 children aged 7,5, and 2, have been crammed into a 150 sq foot hotel room since the hurricane waiting for someone to help.
Citimortgage had lost a $1000 money order I had sent them in August, and had me listed as "in default". I went through the required steps to verify purchase of the money order, and called back post hurricane to check on the status of that situation.
A very nice lady answered their customer service line and told me that the money order had been found, that I was no longer in default, then asked about the hurricane. I told her our situation and she told me that she would sign me up for the deferred payment plan offered to Hurricane Ike victims.
She said that I would not have to worry about payments until January 7th. She did not give me any more information, but told me they would be mailing me information with the specifics.
All was well, or so I thought. A strange thing happened, though. I got a call from my insurance company that Citimortgage had made a claim on my property, and that I needed to make a recording for their records. I also got a call from a very rude and short man who said he was from Citimortgage and wanted to verify that Citimortgage was the lien holder on my property. I told him they were and he hung up on me.
I asked the insurance rep what the claim could be for, and she suggested that they were filing a claim to recover the money that was lost due to the deferred payment.
I called Citimortgage to ask about the claim they had made. The lady I talked to was very nice, but said that I was not actually enrolled in the deferred payment program, but there was a note on the account that I had been entered into the program but the case was open. She said that she would take care of it and make sure I got through the process. She said there was no information about an insurance claim.
I received my first insurance settlement check yesterday and was surprised to find it made out to and Citimortgage.
I called Citimortgage to find out how to go about getting the check endorsed by them. The rep who answered the call went into a spiel about how the account was past due for 3 months. I told him I had been told by Citimortgage that I was in the deferred payment program. He said that I was not on the program, and that the only way to deal with the check was to endorse it and send it to them.
They would subtract the $2500 from the check, and deposit the rest into an escrow account. I would then have to go through a laborious paperwork process involving notaries, adjustor reports, and forms for the contractor to fill out, at which point I would get half of the remaining money. Once the work was 95% done, Citimortgage would send an inspector out and they would make me do more paperwork to get the remaining half.
I pleaded with them to help me, and told them my specifics, but they didn't seem to care. I'm pretty sure the insurance claim made by the rude man who called me is the cause of Citimortgage being a payee on the settlement check.
So now I am facing foreclosure and what might as well be the loss of the money I need to rebuild and get my family back in our home and start to replace everything we lost. Thanks Citimortgage.
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