Consumer complaint received 2023-10-31
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — Escrow, taxes, or insurance
Company: CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP, INC. (NV)

XX/XX/XXXX I received a notice from my Mortgage company stating I had an escrow shortage of over {$3500.00}. I had just purchased the new home XX/XX/XXXX so their should not have been any issues. I called and asked questions no one could answer, asked for an account statement be sent to me. Upon receiving it I noticed right away that they sent me a disbursement check that put my escrow account in the negative. HOW could that happen? Why would the bank send me a check and say it was an overage in my account and clearly it was not, who is charge of flagging and correcting these issues? Now my account is negative and I see where the payments had to be made for my taxes for months. At no point in this time did I receive any notice or phone call from the bank. When I had called to inquire why I was receiving this check no said then I was in the negative, just that it was an overage. Now looking at this I am getting really upset because this clearly looks like some fishy stuff the bank is pulling on me. There was supposed to be a cushion in my escrow account where was that? Oh it was the money that they sent to me. 
Their mistake caused me to go in the negative and mess my entire account up, they were even late paying my taxes. They made the miscalculations and reduced the amount they were taking for my property taxes.. its a new build community. I expect the taxes to go up not down. That was also another mistake I was made aware of. I feel they have a fiduciary duty to handle my account accurately and not cause damage, hardship, mental stress or for the consumer to lose their home. Now that I have this bill here is what they want to happen. An increase in the escrow amount, which went from them taking {$70.00} to now {$250.00}. The {$3500.00} I owe because they paid the taxes on my behalf instead of notifying me was going to be spread out over a year and about {$220.00} extra on the mortgage. So with the escrow going up and the shortage that would be almost {$500.00} extra on my mortgage. I am a single mother on a fixed income, no way I can afford that at all. I wouldn't have even gotten a loan if that's what my mortgage would have been. The bank would have turned me down, so why do they think I can pay it now? Predatory Lending comes to mind when I think of what they are doing and if they are doing it to other people. When I spoke to a Supervisor she said it was concerning, she had never seen anything like this before. My case was escalated to a higher office that would handle the investigation of what transpired with my account. I was contacted by someone from Citizens bank and told they would look into it. They did and determined they dropped the ball and made the mistake, said sorry but that's it. No explanation about why I was put in the negative, why I was not notified so I could handle paying it. No accountability at all. The best I was going to get was they will spread the payments out over 5 years.

This still is not the answer I wanted, too many mistakes were made at the beginning of this and no one is being held accountable for it but me, the person who did not make the mistake at all. The one person that could have lost their home due to the negligence of the bank. Because one thing is for certain, if I made errors I am held accountable. So why isnt the bank?