Citi strung me along for about 4-5 months on mine. Our loan was originally through a local Heritage Bank, and was on FHA. Then Citi bought the loan from Heritage. When my wife lost her job, we had enough in savings to cover a few months worth of mortgage, bills, etc. I've always been big on having at least 3 months worth of bills, living expenses, etc saved up just in case. When we burned through that, I called Citi to see if I could capitalize on one of the programs the government was offering to lenders. From the first call, all the way until the end, I was assured they would be able to help me out. I was one of the people way underwater in my mortgage, because I had bought my house for around $147k, and every house in the subdivision had since closed around $90k, thus absolutely killing my property value.
So anyway, I keep calling during the 4-5 months to check status, and at one point they said they wouldn't be able to help me on one certain program, but they were going to put me through another new program the government had made available to lenders. Ok, fine. They assured me that this second program would be the answer, and they could cut my mortgage AT LEAST in half. So, I wait a few more months and I call every few weeks checking the status as they instructed me to do. So finally, I get an answer. "Oh, well your loan is originally thru FHA, so you never qualified for any kind of assistance in the first place." So, then I asked if we could do a short sale, and they said no to that. Why? "Well, we're just not doing that at this time." Seriously, that was their answer.
That sucks man, really does.
I'm starting to see the dirty side of these mega-banks. I bought our current home a couple years ago. The note was bought by Chase. So for the last 20 months or so, I've had Chase automatically withdrawing my payment on the 9th of every month.
In January I closed on a refinancing, just to lower my rate and my payment a little. I went through Quicken, who paid off the note at Chase. I received a statement from Chase, showing the payoff, applying the funds, and showing a zero balance. That was mid-January. Come February 9th, bam, they took a payment out of my checking account again. I was pissed, since at that time, I had no business with Chase, owed them nothing, etc. (I had actually already received the "Paid in full" letter from them).
So I call, I'm pissed, and what do they say? "Oh, we apologize, we'll have a refund check in the mail in 20-25 days". That dog didn't hunt, as my boss always likes to say. So after 30 minutes on the phone, I got a lady to take my account number and routing number and tell me they would have it wired back in within 48 hours. So three days later, it's not there yet.
I call back and the new lady tells me they have to have an unaltered statement from Bank of America showing that it was taken out. She acknowledged that she could see in her system that it was taken and not put back. She couldn't really explain why I had to also show a statement that showed where they had essentially stolen money from me.
To my point....it occurred to me what they're doing. Their whole system is automated. The payment withdrawls, they late notifications....everything. Everything is automated and set up in their system. It only makes complete sense that the day balance of a loan is "zero" and it is marked as "paid in full", their automated system should automatically cease to withdraw future payments from the customers checking account. Seems basic, and considering everything else their system does "automatically", would seem obvious and essential to completing what their system should do.
But think of this. If they take my $1500, then give me the "we'll mail it out in a check refund, we apologize", then they get to sit on my money for 2 or 3 weeks. Chase probably has, what? tens of thousands of loans? many of which are being paid off for various reasons (refinance, selling, etc). So if every loan that closes with them, they take one more payment, sit on it for 2-3 weeks, then that's millions, and millions of dollars they are churning constantly.
For one, they could be making interest on that money, having it loaned out in various ways. One simple way is something most giant banks do, which is to loan funds overnight to other large banks. Banks have to maintain minimum and maximum amounts in certain types of accounts to fall within different federal reserve guidelines. To maintain their proper levels, they lend out and borrow large amounts overnight from other banks. I'm sure Chase knows exactly what they're doing by not having automatic withdraws stopped on time. That's not complicated and would be easy to have in place and or correct.
But they're the big bank. I'm just me. What good does it do to yell at some lady (who likely isn't even in the US) about Chase banking policies and procedures. It would take me going to 60 minutes or Dateline or something to get little things like that exposed. So oh well, they stole my money and I wait for my "refund" check.
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