Consumer complaint received 2015-06-22
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: AZ
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Non-federal student loan
Issue: Can't repay my loan
Sub-issue: Can't temporarily postpone payments

Complaint:
I have been back in school for over a month at this time after taking a month leave of absence. Citibank along with my other student loan lenders were informed of this approved University break. Hopwever, last month ( right before I started back in class ) I began to receive continued phone calls daily from Citibank indicating that I was late for a payment. When I answered and spoke to a representative she informed me that she would notate the file to show I would be back in class and there shouldnt be any issue with getting the information updated, a week went by and I was still receiving the harassing phone calls of up to XXXX times a day sometimes XXXX times within XXXX hour. I assumed they would stop like the last rep said, but another week went by still with the harassing phone calls. ONLY Citibank was doing this, my other lenders all updated their systems and were completely fine with everything going on. I answered XXXX of the many calls again and spoke with yet another rep who indicated that it did show I was back in school and that I didnt need to do anything she would notate the file well but made mention that she couldnt " remove me from their automated system '' therefore although I remained in compliance with the rules, I still had to be harassed daily by a collections machine making me feel like I was running from my financial responsibilities and being a negligent person. Every time the calls would come in I would become more and more anxious as they never seemed to stop. I began to think thoughts like what if the rep lied to me and they are thinking im delinquent? What if I get a 'ding ' on my file now after my clean record of never missing a payment? What if this misunderstanding screws me from ever getting my mom off of my loan as a co-signer? The thoughts kept getting worse and worse, my boyfriend kept trying to calm me stating that I had done all that I needed to do on my end to keep them informed. However, this morning, I received a call from an XXXX number. Due to being at work I wasnt able to answer the call, but I did XXXX the number to see if I could find out who it was. Turns out it was a 'collections agency for student loans ' Citibank had lied to me again and now they are trying to tarnish my name and credit and punish me for getting back into school. A pit formed in my stomach and I felt like screaming because I am so tired of feeling like they have me chained by the neck and no matter how hard I try and comply or work with them, it is never good enough. I called Citibank to speak with a representative and when I informed the woman of my previous conversations with other rep 's she did tell me the account was notated but it was showing that I was on a 'Leave of absence. ' Shocked at this obvious lie, I tried to get furhter information out of her but much like every other horrible phone experience she was very vague and wouldnt tell me much about my last few conversations I had and how they notated the file. I told the rep that those prior reps had both informed me i would not be negatively impacted and I had even asked for them to notate my file of this since I am used to this horrible treatment with them. The women ignored what I was telling her and said that I needed to fill out another in-school deferment form. I told her that I have been in school for other a month and why was every other lender aware of this BUT Citibank, the woman refused to explain that and tried to place the blame on the school. The women then told me that if i were to get the in-school deferment on file then CItibank would 'back date ' any delinquencies that are showing as of now. I once again asked her to notate that she told me this on my account but who 's to say she even will. I am so frustrated and defeated with this company and wish someone would finally expose them for the fraudulent, dishonest acts they perform every day to thousands.

Company public response: Company chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation