Consumer complaint received 2019-02-18
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — 
Company: CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP, INC. (IL)

This complaint is to address that our mortgage company incorrectly reported us to the credit agencies as delinquent/past due on our mortgage. 

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX purchased our mortgage from our initial lender. Our monthly mortgage payment is {$1000.00}. Our first mortgage payment was due XX/XX/XXXX. 

On XX/XX/XXXX we paid {$1100.00} for the payment due XX/XX/XXXX. 

On XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX we made 2 payments of {$550.00} for the payment due XX/XX/XXXX. 

We received a bill that showed our partial payments were not applied to our mortgage. We called XX/XX/XXXX and asked Citizens One to apply our partial payments to the bill due XX/XX/XXXX. Citizens One agreed to this request. 

On XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX we sent two payments of {$550.00} each for the payment due XX/XX/XXXX. We called Citizens One on XX/XX/XXXX to request that these payments be applied to our mortgage payment. 

On XX/XX/XXXX we paid {$550.00} toward the bill due XX/XX/XXXX. 
We called Citizens One on XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX to request the partial payments we had sent be applied to our mortgage payment. 

Citizens One told us they would apply our payments to our mortgage. Instead, the collections department sent us two separate checks returning our money to us and telling us we were overdue on our bill. 

We received a letter dated XX/XX/XXXX from collections department stating that they are returning {$600.00} pursuant to our telephone conversation however, the only conversation we had was us requesting these funds be applied to our mortgage payment. 

We received a statement dated XX/XX/XXXX that shows {$2100.00} is due ( and {$550.00} we had sent previously is still unapplied to our mortgage payment ). 

We received a letter dated dated XX/XX/XXXX from Citizens One stating that mortgage is past due and that Citizens One is returning another {$550.00} to us. 

XX/XX/XXXX @ XXXX - We called Citizens One and spoke with XXXX , and explained the above situation. XXXX spoke to her manager before stating three things : 1 ) Citizens One would waive the late fee associated with the statement due XX/XX/XXXX. 2 ) Since we had to wait for the checks that were being sent back from Citizens One to clear before we could pay the {$2100.00} in full, we would have until XX/XX/XXXX to pay the {$2100.00} in full without being considered delinquent/past due. 3 ) Citizens One would also put a hold on our account and would not notify the credit monitoring companies as long as we paid the {$2100.00} in full by XX/XX/XXXX. 

After receiving the 2 checks, we paid the {$2100.00} in full on XX/XX/XXXX. However, that same day we received another phone call from Citizens One ( as well as a statement dated XX/XX/XXXX ) stating that our account had been delinquent at least 33 days and that we had already been reported to the credit monitoring companies. When we asked about what we had been told on our conversation with XXXX and her supervisor on XX/XX/XXXX - we were told that Citizens One had no record of that conversation. 

We understand that Citizens One has a policy where the we as borrowers must call in order to have partial payments applied. It is an outrageous policy, but we have been abiding by it and calling. However, Citizens One has ignored these requests and instead had returned our partial payments to us and then reported us as delinquent.