Consumer complaint received 2021-09-21
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — 
Company: CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP, INC. (MA)

In XXXX of XXXX, when Covid-19 first hit, my husband and I were worried that his XXXX  ( he is a XXXX XXXX XXXX ) would be negatively affected. As a precautionary measure, we decided to enter into a mortgage forbearance plan with our bank/mortgage holder Citizens Bank/CitizensOne . It was our understanding that this was a 3-month forbearance plan, and we were comfortable with that. Luckily, the pandemic did NOT negatively affect my husband 's business and by the end of the second month we contacted CitizensOne to let them know that we no longer needed to be in the program. At that time we were told that our forbearance had automatically been extended until the end of XX/XX/XXXX. Since we knew that the missed mortgage payments would be tacked onto the end of the loan once the forbearance was over, and because we knew that with the rates going down we would be refinancing eventually, we figured that the additional 3-month forbearance was acceptable. In XXXX, I contacted CitizensOne to ask our next step. I was told that we needed to be approved for the deferment of the missed payments, and so we went ahead with that approval process. In addition, they informed me that their system was so backed up because of so many forbearance plans due to Covid, that they had once again automatically extended our forbearance an additional 3 months. We were not happy about this, but were told that we could start making payments again starting with our XX/XX/XXXX mortgage payment. At that time we were told that our first two monthly payments ( XXXX and XXXX ) would need to be called in rather than submitted online like we had done in the past. In XXXX we got a letter that our deferment request had been approved. XX/XX/XXXX I called and made a mortgage payment over the phone. I continued to do this every month from XXXX through to the current date. Each time I was told that our mortgage forbearance was still in place because their system was so backed up. We would explain each and every time we spoke with them that we have been trying to end this forbearance for over a year, and each time we are told that a 3-month extension has been put in place. ( While we understand the extension is intended to protect us so that we aren't appearing to default on the mortgage, we do not want or need that extension. We want to pay our mortgage monthly, and we wanted to be able to do that starting in XX/XX/XXXX. ) Finally, in XXXX, we had had enough. We decided to refinance the mortgage with another company. During our refinance process we needed documentation from CitizensOne regarding our payments since XX/XX/XXXX. The documentation ( which I will attach ) shows clearly that we have been making, and they have been receiving, our mortgage payments once a month since XX/XX/XXXX, and even though they continually told us that the forbearance SHOULD be over, and our payments SHOULD have been applied as intended, they have not been. Our money has been going into an " other '' account. They call it a " suspense '' account. The principle has not been going down at all. Each and every phone call results in the person telling us that they will email the management team to try to expedite the process to finally end the forbearance plan. Each time we are told that it will take 3-4 weeks. This last time we spoke ( on Monday, XX/XX/XXXX ) we were told once again that our forbearance was set to officially end on XX/XX/XXXX, and that she would send an email to management to speed that along ... which would take 3-4 weeks. I have no confidence that the forbearance plan will end on XX/XX/XXXX, as we have been being promised this every 3 months for a year. 
We don't know what to do at this point. We've asked to speak to supervisors, anyone who can help us further, but were told that they could put a message in for a supervisor to call us back, but that no one was going to call.