Consumer complaint received 2017-08-09
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: OH
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Other type of mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
To be sure you have this I am opening my own complaint. The email below is what I received from the FDIC. I was told by my attorney general 's office to file a complaint with the FDIC. Now they are pushing this on as is detailed in their brief email below. I have put in after the FDIC email the complaint I filed with the FDIC. Thanks, sorry the length of all this. I 've enclosed the details as a separate document as well. XX/XX/XXXX Ref. No : XXXX Re : Citibank, National Association, XXXX XXXX, SD ( CitiFinancial/OneMain Financial ) Dear XXXX and XXXX XXXX : Thank you for contacting the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ( FDIC ). The FDIC 's mission is to ensure the stability of, and public  confidence in, the nation 's financial system. To achieve this goal, the FDIC has insured deposits and promoted safe and sound banking practices since XX/XX/XXXX. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ( CFPB ). Based on our review of the issues you raise in your correspondence, we believe your concerns should be referred to the CFPB for assistance. We are forwarding your correspondence to the CFPB at the address below. Sincerely, Consumer Response Center To : CFPB From : XXXX XXXX Date : XX/XX/XXXX Re : A loan with CitiFinancial, a subsidiary of Citibank This document describes details and actions about a loan my wife and I had with CitiFinancial. We firmly believe that we are the victims of embezzlement and fraud to cover up this known act that was perpetrated by an employee within CitiFinancial. During the tenure of the loan, we believe CitiFinancial and their employees deliberately with malicious intent, violated multiple federal and state rules and regulations regarding loans to consumers within the State of Ohio. We firmly believe CitiFinancial should be held accountable for their actions against us and for any others that may have been erroneously vilified, maliciously harassed, deliberately cheated and swindled out of money. This is the details. In XX/XX/XXXX, we secured a 2nd mortgage against our house with XXXX XXXX. The 2nd mortgage was for {$15000.00}, for a ten year loan. A copy of the original loan application and paperwork are available for inspection. The loan was sold to CitiFinancial almost immediately. A copy of the sale or transfer to CitiFinancial is available for inspection. We made payments per the original loan agreement. We fell behind a couple times but we always caught the loan back up per the manager at the time with CitiFinancial, and per the entries in the spreadsheet from CitiFinancial ( more about the spreadsheet later ). During the course of the loan, from time to time, we were offered by CitiFinancial a Skip a Payment option. The option was to skip a monthly current payment, dont make it for the month. The payment would be added onto the end of the loan. No extra costs were incurred for this. In essence the same number of payments would be made per the original loan agreement, but the period to make these payments would get extended by one month. We accepted this offer from CitiFinancial several times. When I asked the then current manager of CitiFinancial in XX/XX/XXXX, how many of these skip a payments we had accepted, I was told a total of 12. However in the spreadsheet sent to us by the CitiFinancial manger, ( which was the CitiFinancial bookfor our loan ), I can only count 10 of these. Using 10 as the correct number, our loan was extended 10 extra months. During the last almost 4 years of the loan we made every payment on time per the loan agreement. The credit reporting bureaus showed this at one time. The credit bureaus were able to verify this, until XX/XX/XXXX, when CitiFinancial dropped our payment history and replaced it with extremely damaging information. The first payment was due on XX/XX/XXXX. Per the loan, 120 payments ( ten years ) for the loan means the last payment would be XX/XX/XXXX. CitiFinancial provided a letter stating these exact same facts. Because of the ten Skip a Payments the new final payment should have been XX/XX/XXXX. The original loan agreement specified that the total interest or finance charge would be {$15000.00} for the ten years. The original loan amount was {$15000.00}. The annual percentage rate was 15.666 %. The total of payments would be {$30000.00}. During the tenure of the loan, about 2.5 3 years into it we ran into some financial difficulties. Payments were late. But we caught the loan up. At one point during our financial difficulties, in XX/XX/XXXX, the then CitiFinancial manager XXXX stalked me at my house. I had never met XXXX, nor had my wife. The only way he could have known who I was, was by stalking me at my house. Watching when I left, and when I returned. Who else was going in and out of our house. When I left for work one morning, I rode the bus at the time, he stopped me on my way to catch the bus at the bus stop! He told me who he was and he demanded payment! I had never met him before and to say I was dumbfounded was an understatement. He was yelling at me as my bus pulled up. All I could think of doing at that point was saying I had to leave and that I would have my wife try to get some money to him later that day. I called my wife at work and told her what had happened. She said she would try and borrow some money and get it to him. I went on about my work. Later that day I caught the bus home. I got off the bus and walked part way home when XXXX showed up again. He blocked me from continuing home. He yelled my wife had not contacted him and he wanted payment! I again was dumbfounded and to be honest a little scared. I told him I had not had a chance to talk to my wife since this morning and I would be talking to her as soon as I got home. He yelled some more things and I finally said look I cant do anything here let me go home and see what we can do. He said I had better have the money the next day, and left. I got home told my wife again what had happened and with a lot of tears she finally got a friend to loan us some money. We dropped it in the CitiFinancial branch office mail slot that night. That was the largest payment we ever made to CitiFinancial, but it was what XXXX had demanded be made. As I stated before, I had never met XXXX before that. I have never been in the XXXX, XXXX office, which is now closed. Nor have I ever met any of the other XXXX XXXX office employees. But I can describe XXXX and the vehicle he was driving to prove I am not lying about this, as crazy as it sounds. Sometime in XX/XX/XXXX we were looking at paying off CitiFinancial. In XX/XX/XXXX, I asked the new manager at CitiFinancial, XXXX, how many Skip a Payments I had received over the ten years. She told me then that we had received 12 of them. Since we had paid 5 in XXXX, only 7 should have been left, using her count. My wife pays the bills so I do not regularly look at the monthly statements. I looked at the XX/XX/XXXX statement and it indicated that {$7900.00} was still due on the loan. That was impossible! Only 7 payments was due approximately {$1700.00}. A whopping difference of over {$6000.00}! I contacted the CitiFinancial office, and talked to the manager XXXX, again. I told her the payoff amount could not be correct. There were only 7 more payments to be made. She said their payoff amount was correct and that I was wrong. I started looking at the statements we had and the tax information received from them and the original loan agreement. During this time we made the XX/XX/XXXX payment, so by my understanding only 6 payments should have been left. I called XXXX back and told her they were incorrect about the amount owed. I told her about the total number of payments and that only 6 were left. She would not listen to me. She insisted I had to pay the {$7900.00} amount. I told her I would not pay it. A couple days later I received a collection agency request for full payment. I disputed the validity of the debt. The collection agency then sent me a copy of the CitiFinancial spreadsheet used by them to record the payments. The spreadsheet shows interest and principal per payment, late payments, when a payment was received, when it was booked to the account, etc. We believe we were the only customers of the XXXX office that the manager sent a copy of the account spreadsheet to. I went thru this and counted up all the payments made and those skipped. I also went back and pulled all my tax records and looked at the interest reported to the IRS for XX/XX/XXXX thru XX/XX/XXXX. I totaled the interest up. It came up to + {$21000.00}! The original loan said that for the 120 payments the maximum amount of interest that could be charged was {$15000.00}. I was overcharged in interest by over {$6000.00}. The amount of overcharge should have been applied to the principal. Had CitiFinancial done that there would have been no problem. Yearly, from the first payment of the loan, the principal and interest was miscalculated by CitiFinancial employees. I contacted CitiFinancial several times about their mistake by phone and mail. They refused to listen to me. Demanded payment or lose my home. Then I received a demand for full payment from XXXX XXXX XXXX attorney at law. The amount being demanded was {$7800.00}. Im not sure how they came up with {$7800.00}. The XX/XX/XXXX/ XX/XX/XXXX monthly statement shows {$7900.00} as the total amount due. However in all correspondence since the demand has been for {$7800.00}. I received letters and phone calls from both CitiFinancial and XXXX XXXX XXXX office. Thats when I contacted an attorney about the problem. Their advice back then was dont pay them anymore. They will sue you and when they do we will counter sue. This was XXXX XXXX, in XXXX. XXXX followed up with me in XX/XX/XXXX to see if CitiFinancial was suing me. I told him they had not at that point as far as I could tell. He said just wait they will. Well, CitiFinancial did not sue us, or take our home, or try to take it. In XX/XX/XXXX, after sending a letter to the CitiFinancial home office complaining of the harassing phone calls, I received a letter from OneMain Financial saying they would stop the phone calls, at home and at work. They did abide by this. They continued to send monthly statements up through XX/XX/XXXX. It was during this period CitiFinancial renamed their company to OneMain Financial. The statements from XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX were from OneMain Financial. In XX/XX/XXXX XXXX, a collection agency, sent me a letter telling me the account was turned over to them. There was one phone call from them shortly thereafter in XX/XX/XXXX. The gentleman on the phone, XXXX XXXX was polite and asked why we quit paying on the loan after 4 years with no problems. I explained what the problem was. He said thank you and I never heard from him or anyone else from XXXX or CitiFinancial until XX/XX/XXXX. However in XX/XX/XXXX CitiFinancial absolutely wrecked my credit rating. They reported something called a charge off with lien to the credit reporting agencies. Because of this : we were unable to refinance our house, we paid extra for credit when we did get it, we were denied credit, we had to have family help when we could not get credit. They have cost us thousands upon thousands of dollars. We have an 8.00 % mortgage, which at the time still had 17 years to go. Plus the high interest on a new car loan in XX/XX/XXXX, and so on. Not to mention the embarrassment of having to ask family for financial help. In XX/XX/XXXX I received a letter from CitiFinancial saying the account was being transferred to another CitiFinancial office in XXXX North Carolina. The account number was being changed because of this. Yet again I called the North Carolina office and tried to explain the problems, but to no avail. They started sending me monthly statements from XX/XX/XXXX through XX/XX/XXXX. They also started reporting a charge off with lien to the credit reporting agencies. So now my credit report shows two of these items : one from OneMain Financial, and one from CitiFinancial North Carolina. To say my credit rating was beyond poor would be an understatement. Then the really big bombshell hit in XX/XX/XXXX. After all the complaining I had done, telling them they really needed to look at the actual numbers of the loan they sent me a letter stating : The lien securing your mortgage will be released. Additionally, we have agreed to forgive all of the balance on your mortgage in the amount of {$7800.00}, and any other amounts related to that mortgage. Oh and by the way you XXXX have to report this as income since we are sending a XXXX to the IRS stating that we forgave you. To say I was highly irate would be an understatement. They were forgiving us for their actions, and after everything else they had cost us they were having us pay more in taxes for their stupidity!! Needless to say, I contacted them once again and tried to straighten this out and tell them they could not do this. Once again they told me I didnt know what I was talking about, and ( this is very interesting ), that we were part of a select group of individuals that CitiFinancial was doing this for. That is important to remember, because if the other customer loans were handled like mine was, then there are a lot of other people out there that CitiFinancial owes money and apologies to. Thats when I hung up because thats when I realized they actually had reviewed the account and realized their mistakes, or fraudulent employee actions, and this was their way of covering it up, so that the IRS, SEC, State and Federal government agencies would not know about it. Of course I claimed the XXXX amount as required and paid extra taxes because of it. I contacted XXXX XXXX, again about this. The one I had contacted before, telling him and giving him everything I had. This was XX/XX/XXXX. At that time he said he wanted the case. I provided him a copy of the spreadsheet. He said he would have some experts look it over. Eventually they filed a lawsuit against CitiFinancial in XX/XX/XXXX, or at least it looks like they did. It took so long to file this because he kept trying to figure out a way to make this a class action suit. By this time I also started sensing that maybe he did not want to take this case anymore. CitiFinancial came back and told him that we didnt make the very first payment on the loan and that all the interest due was because of that. They used the verbiage about how the interest is calculated as their excuse. This was when I really started doubting XXXX XXXX wanted the case. Also, Im a bit hesitant to say it but I think my attorneys were not well versed in contractual financial agreements. He told me I had to produce evidence that the first payment was made by producing a copy of the cancelled check. Something I or my bank was supposed to have from 17 years ago. Not hardly. I said CitiFinancial knows we cant produce something like that, thats why they are using this as their argument. My attorneys advice was to drop the case without it, so he did. However my argument is that the spreadsheet itself is all the proof that is needed to show how unscrupulous, deceiving, and illicit CitiFinancial actions have been. I went back after XXXX dropped the case and looked over the spreadsheet very closely. I had not done this before, because I had assumed when XXXX said he would have experts look over the spreadsheet that they would have identified any irregularities, other than principal and interest being wrong. I gave him the spreadsheet back in XX/XX/XXXX. After all they were supposed to be professionals. Boy was I wrong! I found many errors and faults, entries that look more like someone covering up illicit activity. And clear without a doubt evidence that we did indeed make the very first payment on time.
Briefly CitiFinancial messed the account up from the very first payment. The spreadsheet shows this.
The very first and second entries, spreadsheet items
1 and 2 appear to be some kind of setup codes. The next entry, item 3, has a pmt code, for a payment. The da
tes for the pmt entries are the key. The dates show date payment was received, date payment was booked, and date for which payment it applies to, in that order. Entry 3 shows XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX. That means on XX/XX/XXXX they received a payment from us for {$250.00}, they booked it to the account on XX/XX/XXXX, and they booked it to ..the wrong payment!!!! They booked it to the XX/XX/XXXX payment!! It should have been booked to the XX/XX/XXXX payment!!! That is their missing payment! This could have been an honest mistake, but I dont believe it was because of later entries. I believe that CitiFinancial deliberately skipped the first payment entry. I believe this is a tactic used to cheat their customers. I contacted XXXX about this but he was not interested in pursuing the case. I then looked more closely at the spreadsheet entries for other irregular items. Since I knew that the first payment was made, and on time, I looked at the next couple of entries to see if this was deliberate illicit activity and not just a mistake. When I was employed at XXXX XXXX XXXX we got paid every two weeks. That generally meant our bills got paid up to two weeks late or two weeks early, or on time. Looking at the other entries : Entry 4 the XX/XX/XXXX date was the XX/XX/XXXX payment, within the 15 days to avoid a late penalty per the contract, Entry 5 the XX/XX/XXXX date was the XX/XX/XXXX payment, again within the 15 days to avoid a late penalty. Things get strange at Entry 6. Rather than being a pmt code its an xpmt code. I believe in XX/XX/XXXX they got two payments in. The xpmt code indicates extra payment. I believe what happened is this. In XX/XX/XXXX somewhere between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX CitiFinancial got a payment in for the XX/XX/XXXX payment from us. They already had the XX/XX/XXXX payment booked so they booked this to the XX/XX/XXXX payment. Then on XXXX XXXX they got another payment in from us for the XX/XX/XXXX payment. We made two payments in XX/XX/XXXX because in XX/XX/XXXX XX/XX/XXXX we received our tax return. Im sure when the extra XX/XX/XXXX payment came in they took the opportunity to pocket the money. They then keyed over the existing XX/XX/XXXX entry with the XX/XX/XXXX entry. But somebody made a notation on the pmt as xpmt, indicating two payments were in. They did this in case anyone caught on to what they were doing and they could claim a simple mistake, and correct it That extra payment went right into the managers pocket XXXX or one of his cohorts in crime. Another fact at this point of the loan. The interest and principal were wrong for these first five payment entries. I noted this in my spreadsheet issues, but within the first XXXX payments, we had already been swindled out of {$170.00}. Money that should have been applied to the principal but was applied to the interest instead. Every payment after these five were wrong for the interest and principal as well. Not only did they calculate them wrong, looks more like they threw darts at a number, they used the wrong interest rate per their own spreadsheet on each and every payment entry as well. Entries 7, 8, 9, 10 are probably correct for dates and payments only. From here on there are many more unusual, abnormal entries that look like the workings of someone stealing from their employer. I believe XXXX and possibly one or two others in the XXXX office were embezzling money from CitiFinancial. They used the high interest collected for CitiFinancial to cover their theft from CitiFinancial executives and superiors. Since the office was doing well, there was no reason for CitiFinancial to send anyone from the home office to review the accounts. After all CitiFinancial was making very good money. At some point after XX/XX/XXXX, we believe CitiFinancial caught on to Jasons embezzlement. This might explain why he was so desperate to get money from us in XX/XX/XXXX, to keep the home office from reviewing accounts. Rather than turn XXXX in and put money back into the accounts and straighten them out, CitiFinancial decided to cover it up letting XXXX go. There must have been substantial theft or costs to be incurred by CitiFinancial to decide to pursue this course. Apparently CitiFinancial executives thought they could just cheat their customers out of more money to reduce their losses. I realize the embezzlement accusation is just that. Without proof it is nothing more, but the spreadsheet entries clearly suggest something irregular was going on. I do believe the spreadsheet is a smoking gun showing multiple irregularities that may be criminal in nature or violations of state and or federal rules and regulations concerning loans. I know XXXX stalking me had to be a violation, and or criminal action. Because of his actions stalking me I would not put it past him to have been embezzling from CitiFinancial. I also believe the actions taken by CitiFinancial to cover up this theft and still try to recover money may be criminal as well. As mentioned previously I have a copy of the original contract taken out with XXXX XXXX, a copy of a spreadsheet from CitiFinancial used by them to service the loan, a spreadsheet that contains every irregular or illicit entry and other erroneous information found in the CitiFinancial spreadsheet, an estimate of what I believe are my damages to date, and this letter documenting the details. I also have many other documents as well pertaining to this. All are available if requested. Out on the internet you can find many complaints by other CitiFinancial customers complaining about the same thing as methat the principal does not decrease as the payments are made. Lots of complaints. Thats why I think the handling of my loan was no accident. After seeing the many complaints on the internet I am led to believe that illicit activity within the CitiFinancial offices is more the norm than the exception. Worse though it that CitiFinancial executives would rather hide or cover up these problems than publicly admit them, or put safeguards in place to prevent them. At a minimum the XXXX XXXX office cheated me and perhaps many other customers. That might be one reason it was closed. That might also be whom was referred to by the CitiFinancial customer rep I called in XXXX XXXX. There may be a group of CitiFinancial customers from the XXXX office that got the forgiveness deal. Most likely all of them were cheated by CitiFinancial as well. Could my account handling be one of many throughout CitiFinancials many offices? Maybe. If so then this problem is a much larger and bigger problem. Perhaps larger than the recent XXXX XXXX fiasco. Another point to make is not only were my taxes filed incorrectly for the years of the loan, CitiFinancials yearly statements were incorrect as well. They did not make as much money as they said they did. Maybe the SEC might want to look at this too? I still do not know if the IRS will require me to refile or audit any of the years XXXX XXXX of my tax returns. Perhaps the IRS will want to re-audit CitiFinancial for these years as well, especially if criminal activity was going on. And of course our credit rating is still suffering because of them. Seven long years and counting. I still can not refinance my home because of the credit entries. Just losing more money every day. We are still paying. Paying for the deliberate illicit actions done to us. It just isnt right. XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, Ohio XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX I 'm attaching the CitiFinancial spreadsheet which is a pdf image of the original document sent to me. Also attaching the contract, a spreadsheet I created pointing out every irregular, incorrect or illicit looking item in the spreadsheet, and a list of damages I believe I have to date. The CitiFinancial spreadsheet I have is a copy of the original. I scanned this in and made it a PDF image document. When you open the document, most likely you use XXXX PDF reader, you have to rotate the image, right click on the document and a box/window opens in it you will see rotate image command. You need to click on the rotate command. You will need to do this three times to get the image appearing correctly. Finally again I have a copy. They shrank the original document down to fit an 8.5 x 11 paper size. Makes it very small. But XXXX PDF gives you the ability to increase the image size, the plus or minus buttons around the middle top. I usually go to 125 or 150. You can clearly make out the characters at these levels.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation