I can’t believe I haven’t dedicated at least one post to how I hate Citi-bank. But I just looked (briefly) at my list of old posts, and didn’t see anything about it, so I’ll re-cap: I hate Citi-bank.
More specifically, I hate Citi-Mortgage. This is because a while back, I saw an advertisement on my mortgage bill about refinancing at a pretty low rate. I pay a fairly high rate, so I thought “oh, that would be awesome!” I did some calculations and stuff to figure out how much lower my payments would be, and built a whole fantasy around how I could use the savings to pay down my mountain of student loans.
I called Citi-Mortgage, and the mortgage consultant was like, “oh yeah, awesome, question, question, question, income, job, outstanding debts, rent, question.” And she was all friendly, and like “Yeah–you should apply!”
And I was like, “As you may have noticed from my answers to your questions, I have a lot of debt. Like a LOT. Isn’t that going to work against me? I don’t want to pay hundreds of dollars for an application fee and appraisal and everything if there’s no chance.”
And she was like “Oh, well, it’s student loans, I’m not sure that counts. I’ll ask my supervisor.” (mumble mumble asking mumble) And then she came back to the phone and said, “Your chances are still good. It’s worth applying.”
And I said, “but if it’s not good enough, I think I can get a co-signer. Would that help?”
She said, “Oh yeah. I’ll make a note of that right here in your file…can I get your credit card number to get started?
And then for a few weeks I was really popular. I got overnight envelopes, and friendly Citimortgage people called to make sure I got the envelopes, and that I was getting the paperwork from the homeowner’s association, and signing the papers, and calling the $300+ appraiser they required. “Hurry, hurry,” they said. “It’s good.” Happy happy. $650.
Then I signed all the papers, and got copies of our tax returns and sent it all in.
Within twenty-four hours I got an envelope with our rejection.
Huh? I called our representative. She didn’t answer. “Wait,” I said on her voicemail, “what about our co-signer. Didn’t they want to hear about that?” I called someone else. “But we pay the higher amount every month. We never miss. Doesn’t it make sense that would would also pay it if it was less?”
She didn’t call me back. Neither did her supervisor, or the people from the other departments. No one returned my emails. But telepathically I heard their message loud and clear. “We’ve got your 650 dollars. Bye bye.”
And so I began to hate Citi-Mortgage with the heat of a thousand white hot suns.
I live for the day I can take the remainder of my mortgage away from them, but it will likely not be soon, because I’ve since learned that the minimum requirement is that your income is 40% (or is it 50%?) of your total debt. My income is like 14% of my total debt.