Consumer complaint received 2017-04-17
Company: CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.
State: PA
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Other bank product/service
Issue: Account opening, closing, or management

Complaint:
We originated a mortgage with Citizens One Home Loans in XX/XX/XXXX. During the next year and a half, Citizens failed to pay our taxes from our escrow TWICE ( and the taxes were only due twice ). After each occurrence there were fees and penalties assessed that were eventually reimbursed to us by Citizens, this after lengthy and poor communications by the bank ( they were typically non-responsive ). After the second failure of Citizens to pay our taxes in a timely manner, we decided to take our business elsewhere and refinanced with another bank. Our county and school taxes were paid from escrow, and these bills were sent directly to Citizens, and only Citizens ( we do not receive a duplicate copy of the bill since Citizens is listed as the " bills to be sent to '' due to the escrow service ). At the conclusion of the mortgage with Citizens, the remaining balance of our escrow was paid to the county and school, however Citizens had received a tax bill that showed that over {$2300.00} was still due because the taxes had gone up. Only Citizens received the tax bill since they are listed as the payer. Instead of informing us that the tax bill had increased and there was a substantial shortfall, they simply paid what they had and closed the mortgage. After the XXXX separate incidents previously where our taxes went unpaid, we are unsure at this point if Citizens is acting out of either irresponsibility or malice. When we asked Citizens to look into this matter, they responded by mail that " your escrow account was scheduled to disburse an additional {$2300.00} in XX/XX/XXXX ; however, since your loan account was paid in full on XX/XX/XXXX, no disbursement was made. '' This is true, but, knowing there was a shortfall ( see their comment above ), and knowing that the tax bill went only to them, they neglected to say a word. This cost us an additional {$340.00} in fines and interest after our new bank investigated the escrow requirement. Citizen 's response was that they acted in accordance with applicable laws and would not reimburse this third incident of their unprofessional behavior. The letter from the " XXXX of the Chairman '' s representative, XXXX, provided his direct number and his office hours if we had additional questions. We had questions on the handling of the recognized shortfall, and left a message on XXXX ' voicemail, on which he said that " he will return our call within XXXX hours. Well, we called and left messages on XXXX separate days between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX with no reply. There are no other contact numbers available for Citizens One Home Loans. The actions, or more specifically the inactions, of this bank have cost us substantial hours of research and repeated followup in all three of the incidents, and fines due to their remarkably unprofessional behavior. Ideally we would like your assistance in retrieving the additional {$340.00} Citizen 's malicious inaction cost us XXXX and I use that word deliberately based on their previous handling of our account ), but would like to at least go on record to point out the unprofessionalism demonstrated by Citizens One in the XXXX incidents. Thank you for your help!

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation