Consumer complaint received 2020-10-01
Company: CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.
State: VA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX, properties I own and rent ( a 2 unit duplex ) caught fire preventing tenants to remain living at my units. Unit 1 had a mortgage bal of $ XXXX and Unit 2 no mortgage so my insur co issued 2 separate cks which were received on XX/XX/XXXX ( the one for Unit 1 was pay to the order of my husband and a previous mtg servicer who sold the loan to bank I am submitting this complaint about ). So it took another week to have my insurer send a corrected ck payable to both my husband and the mortgage company ). I understand this is normal practice since the mortgagor has a $ XXXX interest in the property. The insur ck to be used to restore the unit is for {$91000.00}. In the week waiting for the new check, I researched the Insur Claim process with the company and decided I would be more conveniently served and able to restore my unit more quickly if it was paid off. I was informed by XXXX to send the insur ck once received to the insur claim dept in XXXX SC along with their mailed payoff quote and a separate letter requesting the insur claim ck to be applied to the outstanding balance and return the excess to me. The payoff letter was for XX/XX/XXXX ( although I did submit another mtg payment after the payoff quote ). My mailing was sent the same day I received the corrected ck and sent trackable. It was received by the company on XX/XX/XXXX. I was also tracking the status of my loan via website and their insur tracking text service ( which still on XX/XX/XXXX does not reflect the receipt of the insur claim ck ). So, on XX/XX/XXXX since the website showed no payoff and concerned about additional interest I would incurring - even though they had the funds since XX/XX/XXXX and did not apply it towards the loan until XXXX wired in $ XXXX. This amount ( the wired funds ) paid off the loan. So contact with the loan was now directed towards finding out how they can hold onto funds which were sent to protect their interest in the property when they no longer had an interest. If I called the customer service number, I was told the insurance dept had to handle this. If I called the insurance dept, I was bounced to the Payoff dept, the payoff dept was consulted by either the insurance dept or customer service dept and then I was told by XXXX that they had 20 days ... a vicious circle and erroneous information every time. I was told by Sue with the release would occur on XX/XX/XXXX. An earlier conversation ( with XXXX ) told me that since the loan was paid off, they have the 20 days and that I would receive the $ XXXX with the return of my escrow overage. Well, I got my escrow overage ck of {$890.00} which states it is a payment in full. This prompted an immediate call explaining I really needed to get my $ XXXX. Yesterday, XX/XX/XXXX I was told by XXXX that she would call me back by XXXX XXXX  eastern to give me a status update. She was to find out if they can wire the funds to my acct ( although she did not ask for the bank acct info ) and let me know its status. It is almost XXXX et and still no call. This fiasco has cost me lots of stress-trying to complete repairs to both units when this company received all the funds for Unit 1 and $ XXXX wired funds on XX/XX/XXXX, leaving me only $ XXXX to do the repairs timely so I can get units re-rented BY XX/XX/XXXX.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation