Consumer complaint received 2017-12-05
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — 
Company: CITIBANK, N.A. (TX)

For all of these transactions listed below, there are recorded conversations, as we ask each time we phoned to ensure these calls were being recorded for 'quality and training purposes '. On XX/XX/XXXX, we received letter from XXXX  XXXX XXXX that we would be awarded {$100000.00} for damages to our home from Hurricane Harvey and that the check would be arriving in the mail. On XX/XX/XXXX, we received letter from Citi Mortgage advising us that they would be selling our loan effective XX/XX/XXXX. We saw a 'train wreck ' happening here with these dates, i.e. our insurance check on its way, and this transfer of our account to another lender. We knew the check would be in our names with a requirement for Citi Mortgage to sign off as well, and that the mortgage sign-off would be the 'bottleneck ' to get our funds to repair the house. So, we decided that we would rather pay off our mortgage ( ~ {$70000.00} ) and use the remainder to repair our house ( ~30,000 ). So, we phoned Citi Mortgage Help Desk to find out how we could mitigate this train wreck. The person on the help desk informed us that we had to : 1- Request a payoff for the loan 2- Draft a letter stating that we authorize the funds to pay off the mortgage and refund the balance 3- Endorse the check and mail this to Citi at address of XXXX XXXX XXXX -- XXXX Ohio. On XX/XX/XXXX, we finally received our check from the Insurance, so we sent the check and all the above information to the address above with 'overnight ' shipping ( ~ {$25.00} ) so that it would arrive at Citi on Monday XX/XX/XXXX in time to avoid being in the aforementioned 'train wreck '. So, Monday and Tuesday, we waited and we did n't receive any correspondence ( phone or e-mail ) from Citi regarding this important transaction. So, Tuesday afternoon, we phoned Citi Mortgage Help Desk to  ask about this payoff. We were routed to a new person on the phone, and after we explained everything, they told us that they received the check, but were just holding it, because our account was set to transfer to XXXX XXXX the next day. Of course, we were very upset about this, and we asked to escalate to a supervisor. We discussed with supervisor XXXX, who assured us that she was so sorry that this was happening ( in her very well trained de-escalation protocol ) and that she would investigate to see what could be done, and would phone us back. XXXX did not return our phone call. XX/XX/XXXX, we phoned Citi Mortgage Help Desk again and left a message ( s? ) for XXXX asking what she had found and, again, we received no return phone call. We were advised that it would be 6-7 days before XXXX XXXX XX/XX/XXXX XX/XX/XXXX would establish our account and recognize us as a client as we discussed with someone from Citi Mortgage Help Desk requesting payoff of our loan and requesting refund of the balance. At this time, we are informed that they dont know what happened to the check. So, of course, we are enraged. 
We asked Citi Mortgage to 'pull ' our account information, and not to transfer our account since we had already signed all the necessary paperwork and expressed to them that we wanted to use the funds now in their possession to pay off our loan. We received no help or information from Citi Mortgage, and read on to see what 'train wreck ' their lack of initiative caused this homeowner -- We are now 45 days past the initial contact with Citi Mortgage XXXX and we still do not have our money from our insurance -- see XXXX ' complaint against XXXX XXXX .