Consumer complaint received 2018-11-25
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Applying for a mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage — 
Company: CITIBANK, N.A. (NY)

When I began the process of purchasing my first home in XXXX, I explored mortgage rates with Citi Mortgage. Unfortunately, Citi performed an illegal ( under the Fair Credit Reporting Act ) credit inquiry, then refused to remove that inquiry. The results of this were that 1 ) my ability to obtain credit from other lenders was inhibited, and 2 ) I was coerced into accepting a new, higher rate from Citi. 

I have included all relevant emails from this encounter. Here is more detail : On XX/XX/18, I reached out to a Citi Mortgage representative via email, per the recommendation of my real estate agent. In asking for a quote for a mortgage rate, I wrote " I'm happy to provide any other information that you need, and please of course feel free to pull a credit report, so long as it's a soft pull so as not to impact my score just yet. '' ( see attached : XXXX Complaint 1 ). Three days later, I was told that Citi had in fact made a hard inquiry. Wanting to get rates from Citi 's competitors, I insisted that Citi remove the inquiry ; over the ensuing weeks, I was told that the inquiry did not impact my credit score ( which is, of course, incorrect ), that the inquiry would be removed, and finally that it would not be removed (! ). Meanwhile, I did reach out to competitors to get rate quotes, and, with the illegal inquiry still in my report, the rates that were quoted were higher. 

Meanwhile, when it came time to finalize the rates, I was offered a higher rate from Citi than the rate initially offered. I gave Citi several opportunities to honor their initial rate, but they refused. With no other options -- I couldn't risk losing the property, and, because of Citi 's anti-competitive practice of refusing to remove the inquiry, I couldn't get a fair rate from a competitor, as my credit profile was incorrectly tarnished by the illegal inquiry -- I signed the contract.

I repeatedly attempted to allow Citi to do the right thing and honor the initial rate, but they refused. It wasn't until the beginning of XXXX that I finally got a call from Citi 's escalation department, saying that they would take no further action because I " signed the contract ''. ( Note that they did attempt to get back to me by phone earlier, we just didn't connect by phone. ) While there are a lot of components to these events, to me, the narrative is straightforward : Citi was abusive ( making an illegal inquiry, then refusing to remove it ), deceptive ( telling me that they were working on removing it, only to later tell me that they had stopped trying to get it removed ; telling me that a hard inquiry " did not and will not affect [ my ] fico score '' ), and anti-competitive, forcing me into a contract that was unfair, given their behavior. All of this is clear from the attached emails. 

The remedies that I asked for were simple and appropriate ; initially, I asked them to remove the inquiry in a timely fashion so that I could explore rates with other lenders. Once it became too late to do that, I asked them to honor the initial rate that they promised, and that I could have locked in, had I known that I was frozen out of rates with other lenders, and that the rate they would give me could change.

Buying my first home has been a challenge, but a joy. However, Citi 's illegal behavior has caused me significant distress, and has put a significant damper on what should be a wonderful milestone.