Consumer complaint received 2023-07-13
Company: CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.
State: NY
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Struggling to pay mortgage

Complaint:
The Covid-19 mortgage forbearance program was established to assist and protect consumers during a time of great hardship, yet Citizens Bank has abused and manipulated the process of exiting the forbearance program in an attempt to force me and my young family out of our home by refusing to apply payment to my loan, delay tactics, false information, communication dead-ends, non-responsiveness, withholding information and extreme negligence over the past year while I repeatedly attempted to get my account into good standing in a timely manner. 

After over a year of enduring Citizens Banks misinformation, mistakes and manipulation, I have been wrongly denied a reasonable exit option from my Covid-19 Forbearance program and forced into a situation that was crafted by Citizens Bank to drive me into foreclosure. This has been so extensive and egregious that what follows is only an abbreviated description of the events that have transpired. 

Please help me and my family not become victims of the predatory and illegal actions by Citizens Bank. 

<EVENTS AROUND EXITING COVID-19 FORBEARANCE> When my Covid-19 forbearance period ended, I immediately sought options to get the account into good standing and to begin repayment on the mortgage. 

Citizens Bank sent letters from phantom accounts with unreachable customer representatives, a non-existent company, and blank contact fields. I called other numbers provided by Citizens Bank for loss mitigation, customer service, and collections and was told by everyone I spoke to that there was nothing they could do and my only course of action to exit Covid-19 forbearance was to send in a Request for Mortgage Assistance ( RMA ) application to the Loss Mitigation department. I have attached one example ( Attachment A ) No one ever reached out to me or gave me any other option. Citizens Bank actively avoided meaningful communication with me or providing options for exiting my Covid-19 Forbearance Plan. 

I tried to restart payments by sending in a payment for my full monthly mortgage bill after the forbearance period ended. I received confirmation that the payment was received and would be applied to my loan. ( Attachment B ) Citizens Bank processed my payment, but did not apply it to my loan. My bank statement shows it was placed in " other '' section and my account was not credited. ( Attachment C ) When I called to check on this the Citizens Bank representative told me, with my husband listening as witness, that while the account was in review with loss mitigation, any payments would not be applied to my account, I DID NOT NEED TO MAKE PAYMENTS AS THEY WOULD NOT BE APPLIED TO MY LOAN and that there would be NO NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES for not making payments. 

The money was not returned to me. When I called Citizens Bank, I have been told that there was no record of any payments or a suspense account. No one at Citizens Bank has been able to tell me what happened to my payment of {$5000.00}, despite several requests for that information. It has some how disappeared. 

I am afraid to send any more money to the account for fear that it will also disappear without any accountability or my account being credited. 


<EVENTS AROUND LOSS MITIGATION PROCESS> After several phone calls receiving misinformation from Citizens Bank representatives multiple times, I turned all RMA documentation onto the Loss Mitigation department in on-time as instructed by the Citizens Bank representatives . Subsequently, Citizens Bank delayed a third-party home appraisal for months, after which they requested updated information be sent by XX/XX/XXXX. I sent the updated information to the email address provided on XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX XXXX XXXX  days before it was due. ( Attachment D, date and time highlighted ) When I did not hear back from Citizens Bank for awhile, I called to check on the status and was told that that Citizens Bank did not process my documentation, had closed my application and unilaterally deleted all my documentation. The only option I was give was to start the RMA process over again. 

A representative at the Office of the Chairman later informed me that 17 months was the cut-off for maximum number of months overdue to be eligible for an extended modification, which conveniently aligns with when Citizens Bank didnt process my documents, UNILATERALLY AND STRATEGICALLY FORCING ME PAST THE MAXIMUM USING MEANS THAT WERE OUTSIDE OF MY CONTROL and without me even knowing there was a " maximum ''. 


<EVENTS AROUND LOSS MITIGATION PROCESS, ROUND TWO> Given no other alternative, I started the process again and turned in everything in full and on time. The second application it was deemed complete on XX/XX/2023. When I hadnt received any update on my account, I called to check and was told that my application had been denied. Citizens Bank had denied me THEN CONVENIENTLY DID NOT NOTIFY ME OF THE DENIAL. I would never have known I was denied if I hadnt called, and without a response, I would have been automatically sent into foreclosure. I have attached XXXX of my many Complaint Letters to Citizens Bank. ( Attachment XXXX ) The Office of the Chairman told me my appeal was due whether or not I received a letter or knew why I had been denied, and that was due in a matter of days. I paid to get an e-fax account to send an appeal letter on time, requesting a denial letter to respond to. 

I called weekly to request the denial letter. Citizens Bank withheld my letter of denial for XXXX WEEKS, continuing to push the account further past the maximum number of months past due to their advantage. 


<EVENTS AROUND DENIAL WITHOUT DETAILS OR RECOURSE> When I finally did receive the letter, I appealed the denial on time with full details of the misinformation and manipulation of my account by Citizens Bank and requested a fair resolution. 

I received a letter back with generic denial information and no response to request for a fair resolution on XX/XX/XXXX. 

I called the number on the letter and requested a callback from the signatory on the letter, relationship XXXX XXXX XXXX. A representative said they would leave XXXX XXXX a message to call me back. 

<EVENTS AROUND CLOSED ACCOUNT AND IMMINENT FORECLOSURE> On XX/XX/XXXX, I received email notification that my second loss mitigation application was again unilaterally closed by Citizens Bank. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I called the Loss Mitigation process to understand next steps. They said they are no longer considering me for any loss mitigation options and that I had 15 days following the notification to respond or else they would start FORECLOSURE proceedings. 

When I inquired about not hearing back from my customer representative to discuss my account, they said XXXX XXXX would call me back when her schedule allowed but had no idea when that would be. A subsequent call with a representative informed me differently, saying that since the account was closed, I was no longer in the Loss Mitigation program and therefore XXXX XXXX would not be calling me at all. 

The options I was given were to avoid foreclosure were ( XXXX ) repay the ENTIRE AMOUNT IN A LUMP SUM or ( XXXX ) restart the RMA process for a third time. Continuing this time-consuming, exhausting process that results in dead-ends and denials with no supporting facts seems futile, but it currently is my only option to avoid foreclosure. They directed me to a website to download the application. Upon going to the website there was no application available for download. They said they had to send me a new application by mail, which would arrive after they passed the deadline to be able to file for foreclosure. 

And, of course, it will continue to expand the overdue amount, further manipulating the numbers in Citizens Banks favor since they will not apply payments to my loan. 


<EVENTS AROUND COMMUNICATION EVASIONS, CONFLICTS, MISINFORMATION> Over the past year, Citizens has repeatedly directed me to contact people who didnt exist, were unreachable, and who wouldnt call me back. They gave me phone numbers to chase that didnt go to people or the correct departments. I requested multiple times to speak to supervisors and managers and told I would get calls back from XXXX, which has never happened. I have sent multiple complaint letters in that have gone unanswered. I have requested information about how the denial was determined multiple times, which I was told I could do by the Office of the Chairman. Those requests have been ignored. I have also documented them. 

I was even flat out lied to. During my attempts to receive a denial letter I was told numerous times that it was sent by USPS, with the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX representative going so far as to say she couldnt control the Post Office, when in fact, later documentation showed it had been sent by XXXX and a tracking number was available proving that it had never left Citizens Bank. 

The runaround Citizens Bank engaged in has required me to spend dozens of hours on the phone, many hours documenting my phone calls for evidence, dozens of hours writing appeals, multiple days of collecting, sorting, scanning, highlighting, faxing, mailing documents, and spending money to fax and mail documents. 

I seek a fair resolution, which I outline in the following section. 

Citizens Bank has been incompetent, unjust and predatory in actively working to avoid the safeguards set in place by the federal and state governments to force responsible families recovering financially from the devastation of XXXX out of their homes. Please help me reach a fair resolution of to my Covid-19 Forbearance and the negligent and manipulative Loss Mitigation process so that my family and others do not become victims of Citizens Bank XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation