Consumer complaint received 2023-03-01
Company: CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.
State: MA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
Dear Sir I would like to raise a formal complaint against Citizens ( XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX, VA XXXX ). The bank has acted negligently in not resolving its own internal error by incorrectly applying funds to an un-requested Escrow account ( instead of applying correctly to the principal & interest only account ). The error occurred in XX/XX/XXXX and since that date, despite numerous phone calls and attempts to resolve the error, Citizens have been unable to correct the error and have now issued multiple Loan delinquency notices ( XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX ) and in appropriately added late charges to the account. 

Summary : The attached extract of the account activity shows that since the loan inception ( in XX/XX/XXXX ) a monthly principal & interest payment of {$2000.00} has been made. No Escrow account ( for real estate taxes ) was requested or provided as real estate taxes were paid directly. 
In XX/XX/XXXX, Citizens incorrectly initiated an Escrow account and paid taxes on my behalf to the XXXX of XXXX MA, despite there being no taxes owing. 
Citizens then sent a letter ( date XXXX XX/XX/XXXX ) stating this and notifying an increase in monthly payment to {$3100.00} ( {$2000.00} P & I plus {$1000.00} for XXXX ). 
I called Citizens customer service and requested they correct this unwanted/unrequested Escrow. They informed me that as the payments had been made to the Town of XXXX ( putting the real estate taxes in credit ), I would have to pay Citizens {$6700.00} to close out the Escrow balance and revert my monthly payments to XXXX XXXX XXXX only of {$2000.00}. 
As you can see from the attached transaction record, I made that additional payment on XXXX XX/XX/XXXX and was assured by Citizens XXXX XXXX XXXX id : XXXX ) that this would resolve the mistake. 
However on the XXXX XX/XX/XXXX, Citizens AGAIN incorrectly established an Escrow account ( with a {$1900.00} balance ) despite there being {$0.00} real estate taxes owing ( in fact that account had been over-paid and had a credit being applied to the next quarters taxes not yet due! ) I again phoned Citizens and was past to multiple departments, eventually being told the ( {$6700.00} additional payment made had been " Misapplied '' by Citizens ( see attached transaction summary ..line XXXX XX/XX/XXXX ). 
After escalation to a customer service Manager ( XXXX XXXX - XXXX XXXX XXXX ) Most recently, commencing XXXX XX/XX/XXXX Citizens are sending weekly loan delinquency notices. I have tried multiple times per day over multiple days to contact XXXX XXXX ( XXXX XXXX XXXX ) and left numerous voicemails to contact me to no avail. 

I have also called Citizens customer service on numerous occasions and have been waiting on hold for hours as lines are constantly " busy with other customers ''. 

Citizens negligence in resolving their mistake and despite my very best efforts ( multiple very long phone calls as Citizens refused to communicate via email, exasperated by hours on hold attempting to get thru to the Customer " service '' number ) has resulted in : a ) In correct Late charges being applied to the loan account b ) My Credit rating rating being negatively impacted c ) Loss of earnings as the huge amounts of time spent trying to sort Citizens error out d ) Emotional distress and worry on the impact of Delinquency notices

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation