Consumer complaint received 2017-05-08
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: NJ
Product: Student loan
Sub-product: Private student loan
Issue: Dealing with your lender or servicer
Sub-issue: Trouble with how payments are being handled

Complaint:
I am a   XXXX   XXXX    XXXX  who partied in  XXXX . When my  XXXX   XXXX  contract ended, I attended  XXXX  University where I obtained a  XXXX  degree. To cover the cost of tuition acquired federal and private student loans. Shortly after graduation, Citibank required payment on all my private loans. For five years, I made a minimum monthly payment of approximately {$450.00}. Despite payments, every year my loan balance increase because of interest.  Citibanks  IRS Form  XXXX , indicate that I paid {$3100.00} in interest for  one of the previous tax years. I did all I could to keep my loans current, this included using my unemploym ent checks, my credit cards, and selling my financial assets  ( I RAs & stocks ). Citibank eventually sold   XXXX  of the  XXXX  p rivate student loan to  XXXX   XXXX . Since I made my payments using online banking I never realized my account was split-up.  XXXX  and Citibank used the same mailing address and the same account number to identify my account. I did n't even realize  Citibank kept   XXXX   of my loans until I started getting calls from a third party. I contacted both Citibank  and  XXXX  to help resolve this issue but I was told nothing could be done to fix the error. One manage at  XXXX  realized the error was no fault of mine and offered to contact  Citibank on my behalf but unfortunately that was the last time I heard from her. I called Citibank  and  XXXX  and they offered no solution to resolve this mistake. Shortly after acquiring my loans,  XXXX  increased my monthly payment to {$650.00}. I call  XXXX  on several occasions to negotiate a lower monthly payment, and I was told to pay {$320.00} at the due date and pay another {$320.00} before the next due date to avoid going into collections. Managing my payments that way would eventually became very problematic for me. However, I did as I was told for as long as I could, until my contract at work wasnt renewed. I called  XXXX  again to explain my situation and I also explained that I had an arrangement with  Citibank to cap my monthly loan payments at {$450.00}.  XXXX  would not offer any flexible options for repaying loans. I had to decide between, rent, and keeping my oth er deb ts ( credit cards ) current. I am not proud of my financial circumstance ; however, I feel I did all I cou ld to keep my loans from going into collections. As I write this letter I still owe over $ 40K in Federal student loans and I have close to $ 10K worth of credit card debt. I want to pay all of my debts and improve my credit worthiness but at this point in my life I dont make a whole lot of money. Outside of my private student loans, I have never defaulted on any loans or credit product. My federal student loans, credit cards, and car loan are all current. The primary reason for all this is because they were willing to offer me a flexible payment option. Today I can honestly say, my private student loans are one of the reasons for my  XXXX .

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 with explanation