Consumer complaint received 2015-09-29
Product: Mortgage — Conventional fixed mortgage
Issue: Application, originator, mortgage broker — 
Company: CITIBANK, N.A. (IL)

In XXXX 2012, we began a refinance process with Citibank on our condo at XXXX XXXX XXXX. We have XXXX complaints regarding the refinance. They are below. We would like each addressed. 

1. Citibank used predatory and deceptive lending practices to close this loan. We were told more than once by XXXX XXXX that a XXXX refinance would not affect our PMI. He said the process is " outside '' of PMI and nothing changes. When my husband sent an email expressing concern about the cost of refinancing and said we wanted to do more research, XXXX XXXX sent the attached email, assuring us " we could only lose by not refinancing. '' XXXX This is an outright lie, please see below for estimate of how much we will lose. ] XXXX See attached email from XXXX 2012. ] I do n't consider an extension of a remaining XXXX payments to XXXX payments 'not changing ' and neither will any other reasonable person. 
2. We were told we did not need an appraisal to refinance. When the closing agent came to our house, he had horribly low market values in the documents. I told him those were not accurate and I asked him where they came from. He told me to ignore them because they are meaningless and generated from some automated system for underwriting XXXX refinances. I started to hesitate again, but he continued to insist that " It affects nothing, do not concern yourself with these numbers. '' His response to my complaint about the value being too low was that system values are often low because they do n't account for things that would factor into a real appraisal like upgrades and location. We could n't see sq ft. or anything else that was used in the value. No advance notice of this value was given. We were given no chance to research or investigate it. We first saw it at closing. There are laws around this! Fast forward 3 years and we now know this is being used to determine our new LTV and when we can drop PMI! How can it be legal to use this artificially low system value? This is costing people XXXX. XXXX even have disclosures that the values are not to be used except for underwriting. Had we known it would affect our PMI, we would have paid for a full appraisal. Our property was under water, but not by that MUCH! 
3. Contrary to XXXX email and XXXX letter XXXX See below and also attached ), this refinance was not in our best interest. By review of the loan amortization tables, if we hold this loan for 15 yrs we will lose XXXX $ XXXX on the refinance. Plus, as PMI is not deductible, we have lost tax savings. We can provide financial records from 2012 to prove that the reason for this refinance was not due to cash flow issues. In 2012, we had substantial retirement and LIQUID savings. This refinance was to save money long term. 
4. See letter for XXXX the most grossly inaccurate statements I 've seen. XXXX explains how the investigation revealed this refinance was beneficial to us. In no way does that letter calculate an annuals 'savings '. Given I highly doubt Citi is going to write off the difference from the re-amortization of principle, you can only factor in savings from interest. And it needs to be offset by the add'l PMI payments and the cost of the refi. Are you duping others this way? 
While not required because we refinanced as an investment prop, I want it noted that Citibank took away our only opportunity to catch this by not providing a PMI Disclosure and not including a payment schedule on the Truth in Lending statement. NOT GOOD BUSINESSInstead of being customer service oriented ( we have been long standing members for over 10 years, citigold customers ), they keep finding the loopholes. We do not do this as a business, we are just XXXX people with XXXX children trying to make ends meet. And instead of walking away like everyone else, we did the 'right ' thing, and Citibank took advantage of us in the process.