I have been a long time customer and shareholder of Citimortgage. They called me several months ago and asked if I wanted to adjust my interest rate on the exisiting mortgage they had? I was a little leary, but they assurred me everything was up front. They even verified my current information to assure I knew they were legit. They told me there would be a cost of $1,700, but I did not have to pay that until everyhting was processsed and verified. I am a numbers guy and figured the savings would cover this cost within six months.
I sent them all the additional information they needed the next day. I had not heard anything from them until I got a $1,700 charge on my credit card bill a couple months later. I called and complained, but they assured me everyhting would be taken care of. Another couple of months passed and I received a $250 charge from Suntrust Bank. They said this charge was for the subordination letter they sent to Citimortgage. The next day I received a call from someone different at Citi and they said they couldn't do the rate adjustment afterall.
I said that is fine, just reimburse me the $1,950 they had cost me. They said they couldn't do that. I called my credit card company to stop the chagres and they said they could not reverse the charge. I am assuming the big banks stick together so that they can continue on with this scam! I have excellent credit, never one day late on any of my payments to Citi. As a matter of fact, I pay addtional principal each month! I have over 80% equity in my water front house and have owned my own CPA practice for close to 20 years. This is fraud.
They took advantage of the fact that they held my current mortgage and had all of my personal info. WIth what is going on in the mortgage business, why would they take advantage of a solid, current, customer? This was nothing but a scam! To prove my point, I went to my local bank(Regions Bank) and refinanced at even a lower rate within a month. What makes matters even worse, Region's processing fee was only $395. I had to send them a ton of info, but if they had a question they would call me, unlike Citi where I only received two calls.
One was the intital "scam" call. Then again to complete the "scam" and notify me that they couldn't do it afterall. I wanted to make sure everything closed before I pursued this case any further. I am sure with them as my existing mortgage holder they could make my life even worse! I may not get back my money, but I am going to take every avenue possible to make sure that this does not happen to anyone else.
|