Codejnki's Blog
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Citi-Mortgage — The power of search
Jul 14th
Using various tools I keep an eye on where readers come from. For most of this year I have been getting a consistent dozen people or so per day who find my site based on my Citi mortgage rants. I’ve even drawn a few comments from people frustrated and in the same situation I found myself in. Someone commented today that they they needed a new mortgage servicer. If only it was that easy. Most of us never even get the chance to decide who services their mortgage. Usually it is decided by people other than us, the ones who have to pay the bill at the end of the day.
I’ve done a lot of thinking lately about mortgages and how all consumers would be better off if the whole system was scrapped and rethought.
Were you aware that even in bankrupcy, the judge does not have the power to create new terms for your loan? Car, RV, credit cards, just about anything else that can be bought with credit a bankrupcy judge has the power to dictate new terms to both you and your creditor, not on a mortgage.
Why is it if I don’t like the service I am getting from my mortgage company, I have to go through the humiliating process of re-financing? If I don’t like the mechanic who is servicing my car, I can take my car to a new mechanic any time. And he usually won’t require two years of tax returns, pay stubs, and blood vials to complete the transaction.
I’m beginning to wonder if there is a need to start a push to our congress people to reform the mortgage industry back to something that is consumer and home owner focused.
Citi Mortgage
Feb 4th
So the Citi mortgage postings have been quite popular. Next week I’ll post a final wrap up of everything.
Fail me three times — Citi Mortgage Continues
Jan 31st
It is time for a third entry in to our continuing series on the failings of CitiMortgage. If you are new to this series I will direct your attention to the previous postings here and here. The entire saga began back in the fall when I decided to start budgeting my life appropriately and pay all of my major bills in installments every two weeks on my pay day. There are many great advantages to this, some of them being:
- Automatic payments set up through my bank’s FREE online bill pay service.
- With 26 paychecks in a year that works to a 13th yearly payment on large things such as the house and the car. This helps to bring the balances down faster.
- My money is being budgeted far better than it was previously.
I started all of this up in early November. In early December I received my monthly statement from Shity Citi telling me that I had not made my full payment when in fact they actually received three half payments (a payment and a half for those of us who went to public schools) between billing periods.
So I did what any normal person would. I called the customer service 800 line. As I have previously mentioned I try to be very polite to phone bank customer service reps, given my previous work experience. Now my original call to the phone bank wasn’t that bad. The rep realized what I was trying to do, opened up a case to get it sorted out, and bid me a good night. I thought that at this point things were sorted out. I was wrong.
The next month I got a statement that again stated that I had not paid in full, and was now accumulating late charges. Frustrated I called customer service again. This time the person on the phone suggested that I sign up for their BiWeekly Advantage plan.
I have received the latest reply from Citi’s customer support group. Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got:
Thank you for your inquiry. To answer your first question, CitiMortgage would credit any additional funds received toward the principal balance of your loan if it were current. However, CitiMortgage does reserve the option to apply any excess funds toward any outstanding fees before crediting additional principal payments. And in our prior email, we explained that your credit could be affected if you sent payments less than the total amount due.
CitiMortgage does not offer a biweekly program; however, they do reccommend The BiWeekly Advantage Plan to their customers. When you enroll in The BiWeekly Advantage Plan, you are buying a service from FNC Insurance Agency (FNCIA), an affiliate of CitiMortgage and member of Citi. The one-time enrollment fee of $375.00 and the $1.50
transaction fee help to offset the costs of administering the Plan for an extended period of time. The Plan’s program fees are comparable to other similar programs available.
CitiMortgage cannot credit funds less than the total amount due toward your loan, per your original loan documents. And, although The BiWeekly Advantage Plan and similar programs draft on a biweekly, weekly, or semi-monthly basis, they all remit full payments to CitiMortgage. The funds drafted by The BiWeekly Advantage Paln are held in a non-interest bearing Citibank account until they are credited to your loan.
I hope I was able to answer your questions. Should you have additional questions regarding the Plan, please feel free to contact FNC Insurance Agency at 1-800-955-6060†, option 3. Our Plan Specialists are available to assist you from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday. You may also visit us on the Internet at www.citimortgage.com/biweeklyadvantatge.
Sincerely,
Vickie Murphy
Plan Specialist
Interesting, we actually have a name. Well at least I am starting to get further up the chain on this issue. Let’s break this down, because there are few great nuggets of information in this.
you are buying a service from FNC Insurance Agency (FNCIA), an affiliate of CitiMortgage and member of Citi.
Wait, so I would have to pay Citi in order to pay Citi? I think we are stepping in to recursion here.
The one-time enrollment fee of $375.00 and the $1.50 transaction fee
Whoa there buddy, the original customer service rep said the enrollment fee was only $300. In the past few days it has gone up by $75? And where did this $1.50 transaction fee come from. The person I spoke to on the phone never said anything about a transaction fee. Then again I cut her off from speaking the moment she mentioned the enrollment fee so she never really got a chance to tell me about the transaction fee. So let’s do the math here. (For those of us who went to public school this is a word problem.)
I want to pay my mortgage off early. It is currently a 30 year loan and bi-weekly payments could potentially cut the length of the loan down to 26 years. I get paid 26 times a year. If I make a payment every two weeks through the BiWeekly advantage program, how much money will Citi have made in fees from me? Be sure to show your work.
$375 + ((26 * $1.50)*26) = $1371
Yes boys and girls, provided Citi never increases the fee (cause that never happens) Citi wants me to pay them an additional $1300 or more simply…………….to pay them. Huh?
per your original loan documents
Basically it is a cop out. They know they could do exactly what I am asking, they simply don’t want to. And because they don’t want to, they put it buried in to the one of the 5 bazillion documents I signed at closing to make sure I don’t do it. Maybe I should go back and re-read every page I signed just to make sure I didn’t sign away my kidneys.
So this calls for another letter back to Citi. At least now I have a name to go with this whole situation:
To Vicki Murphy,
Vicky,
I do appreciate your answers regarding the BiWeekly Advantage plan. I unfortunately will not be participating in the program as I do not actually see an advantage. According to your previous e-mail, if I was to enroll in the program I would effectively be paying Citi an additional $1300 or more over the life of my loan for a service that my bank currently offers me for free.
I have instead opted to open a high yield checking account at my bank and will be transferring funds to that account to make my payments. This will hopefully result in both the loan being paid down sooner (which was my original intent) and that I will earn interest as opposed to paying additional fees.
I would encourage Citi management to review this plan and change their policies regarding how payments are made to accounts. Charging customers additional fees to simply process a payment is no way to build goodwill with your customer base.
Please verify for me that the late charges incurred have been credited off of my account.
But you know what, that just isn’t quite enough satisfaction for me. I also opted to send my Congressman a letter as well:
Mr. Peters,
I have recently become aware of Citi Mortgage’s BiWeekly Advantage program where they charge customers for the “connivance” of making bi-weekly mortgage payments.
Citi refuses to allow me to send payments to them bi-weekly and instead requires that I use a fee based service that is a subsidiary of Citi Group to accomplish this.
Many people try to make bi-weekly payments on their mortgages to speed pay down. The effect can shorten a 30 year loan by up to seven years.
Citi’s “BiWeekly Advantage” though has no advantage for their customers. Instead they charge a $375 enrollment fee and a $1.50 transaction fee every time they draft from my checking account.
Since this program is run by another subsidiary of Citi Group this is clearly a program designed to collect fees from customers and recoup money they would lose in interest by me paying down my loan.
Since Citi is the number #1 receiver of TARP funds (currently $50 Billion) I feel that this is is something that congress should investigate.
I have chronicled my on going dealings with Citi regarding this matter at my own website: http://blog.codejnki.com.
I myself have not signed up for this program, but fact that this program exists infuriates me and I feel that it is completely unethical.
I would appreciate any help or advice in this matter.
Read that little section again. I’ll wait.
Did you see that bit where Citi is the #1 receiver of TARP funds? Yes we’ve given this incompetent group of idiots fifty billion dollars because they don’t know how to make sound financial decisions. And they have the audacity to tell me I can’t pay them?
Folks, this is the reason why the economy is in the tank. Because of geniuses like the guys who run Citi, hundreds of thousands of people are losing their jobs. The banks are not winning any friends nor are they solidifying any of the arguments for helping them.
If a bank is “too big to fail” then it is “too big to exist”.
Good luck, we’re going to need it.
CitiMortgage continues to Fail
Jan 28th
After being confronted with the “option” of paying a $300 enrollment fee for the convince of paying half my house payment every two weeks I sent a rather terse (and maybe inebriated) e-mail to CitiMortgage concerning their BiWeekly Advantage program.
Looking around the net it appears that I am not the only one who has come to this conclusion. The good thing is that I never agreed to sign up for it.
Today I received an e-mail response from Citi:
Please understand that CitiMortgage is unable to recognize funds as a payment for your mortgage loan that are less than the scheduled amount due. In accordance with your loan documents, your payment is due in full once each month. The principal and interest portion of your payment is based on a monthly amortization and cannot be applied in two installments.
In the future, if partial/installment funds are received, they will be applied to one of the following: (1) applied to outstanding fees and then to the principal balance, if your loan is contractually current (2) placed in an unapplied (holding) account associated with your loan until the balance of the payment is received if your loan is contractually delinquent. Please note that late charges may be assessed or adverse reporting to the credit bureaus could result since your payment will not be applied.
If you need further assistance regarding your mortgage account, our Automated Account Information Line is accessible 24 hours a day at 1-800-283-7918*. Customer Service Associates are also available at this number Monday through Friday 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m., and Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., ET and Sunday from 12:00 p.m., to 11:00 p.m., ET. When you contact us, please refer to your mortgage account number.
Thank you.
I was floored. A canned e-mail. They didn’t even have the balls to send a semi-human interaction e-mail. This simply called for another e-mail through their contact us link on their website:
I have some further questions regarding the inability to process a Bi-Weekly payments.
If I was to send my payment in full with an extra $25 where would that $25 be applied by default?
Did the person who responded to my previous request actually threaten to ruin my credit if I sent you MORE money than you are asking for?
What exactly does the $300 enrollment fee cover?
Who gets to keep the interest earned on the bi-weekly drafts prior to the payment being applied to an account? Is it split 50/50 between Citi and the third party or is there some other arrangement?
If you are capable of processing bi-weekly payments sent from the third party, why are you unwilling to process the payments sent directly from me?
But let us take a few moments and take a look at a choice phrase from that canned response shall we?
“Please note that late charges may be assessed or adverse reporting to the credit bureaus could result since your payment will not be applied.”
That’s right, Citimortgage company threatened to report me to the credit bureaus for what amounts to me paying them more money? Could it possibly be that this is actually something to my benefit and not to theirs?
This saga has not concluded. If I do not get a favorable resolution I may be forced to set up an auto payment equal to 1/20th of my payment sent out every weekday. I’d like to see what their billing software does with that one.
CitiMortgage FAIL
Jan 27th
CitiMortgage doesn’t like my money. I send them an auto-payment every other Friday for the house. Their payment software can’t seem to handle it. I was told about the “BiWeekly Advantage” plan that would offer me that service. I simply needed to call the 800 number and set it up.
I’m not going to go in to any more detail. Rather, I’ll let you read the e-mail I sent to customer service. You may infer from there.
——————-
I am appalled at the notion of a $300 enrollment fee for the BiWeekly Advantage plan. I am being told that Citi is incapable of accepting a partial payment on a bi-weekly schedule.
I find this a rather large gap in your payment processing services.
I simply would like to send a payment every other Friday, the same date as I get paid, to make all of our lives easier.
I do not feel that this warrants a third party to make drafts against my checking account, nor a $300 fee to start such a service.
Please explain in technical detail why this is not a possibility. I am a database programmer and am curious as to why this functionality was not included in your payment processing software.
Thank you