Consumer complaint received 2016-12-30
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: TX
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional fixed mortgage
Issue: Loan modification,collection,foreclosure

Complaint:
http : XXXX ( tv news report of our story ) In XX/XX/XXXX, my wife, XXXX and XXXX, and our XXXX young children moved into XXXX, in XXXX, TX. There we built our life, raised our kids, and active members of the community, church, schools, and the XXXX. 
Throughout the XXXX years, we were also responsible in our finances. We live within our means. In XX/XX/XXXX, my contract of XXXX years was not renewed at my company due to financial hard times. We asked our mortgage lender, CitiMortgage for assistance to modify our loan to reduce our payments. By now, we had already been paying XXXX years on our home, and wanted to stay without having to dip into our savings or retirement if not necessary. 
CitiMortgage agreed, and assigned us a friendly rep who began to work with my wife. XXXX made it clear we wanted to stay in our home, and asked what we needed to do. Over the next several months, the rep sent her forms to fill out, proof of past income, documents, etc of which XXXX provided ; making progress by phone and email in a working relationship. XXXX asked if she should be making mortgage payments during this loan modification process, and the rep told her " No, it only messes things up ''. XXXX did what the rep said to do, following her instructions on everything including forms, verifications, etc. Slow progress ; gaps of time between the rep contacting her for the next instruction. Active pockets of time would be followed by a dormancy period where nothing happened. A new rep was assigned to us in mid-stream with no explanation. 
Letters came to the house that talked about possible foreclosure, but our rep assured us they were still working on our loan modification. Sure enough, we would receive encouraging letters confirming how our loan modification was close at hand. Our rep said the foreclosure dept of CitiMortgage was not up to date with our ongoing loan-mod work. Not once said they would foreclose. On XX/XX/XXXX an eviction letter came to our house saying it was sold at auction and a new owner was ready to take possession of the house. Immediately we called our CitiMortgage rep, but she was unavailable, and did not return our repeated messages. However, XXXX days after that, we received a friendly letter from CitiMortgage telling us they were still working on our loan modification. Complete communication failure and deception on the part of CitiMortgage in our loan modification resulted in our house being foreclosed on. They failed to communicate with us a concise picture of our loan modification, and deliberately delayed the process in order to run out the clock on the foreclosure process. Our lifestyle and our financial records show a clean record of paying our bills. It makes no sense that we would dutifully pay our mortgage for XXXX years, then suddenly stop, when we have money in savings, investments and XXXX to keep our home. We are XXXX hardworking people who have invested our lives into XXXX ; paid for 21 years on our home ; hit a bump in the road with my contract not being renewed, and faced it, responsibly asking for assistance from CitiMortgage who we trusted, and whose reps said they could help us if we worked the process. All we wanted from the beginning was to just lower our payments through modifying our loan. Up to the date of foreclosure sale, and beyond, we were sent letters by CitiMortgage for loan modification ( see attached ). We worked with them in good faith, and they took advantage of us. Web search shows nat'l lawsuits against big lenders including CitiMortgage who " dual track '' -- lenders ' reps pretend to work with you for your loan mod, while purposely delaying the process so the other part of the company can foreclose. Citi & others paid billions for this in years past.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed