I feel your pain, my problem is with Citi consolidating my loan when I didn't want them to however.

I applied to find out what the rates were, never told me what it was, asked for references so they can see whether they can approve me or not and finally asked me to e-sign, they didn't specify why, I could only assume it was to release my information for them to look into my application.

No response, not even an email, so I began repayment and paid off one of my loans, 27,000 worth, one month later, Citi sends me a letter saying the interest rate is 6.25% and it has been consolidated...

Now I'm trying desperately to get Citi to reverse this, they are giving me the run around, saying no response yet, and it'll take longer for any decision to be made. Due to their consolidation I lose the $410 rebate I got from Direct Loans, due to their consolidation my Perkins loan of $9000 at 5% that is subsidized till 9/22/07 is starting to accrue interest with Citi now at 6.25%. Due to their consolidation, the $27,000 that was already paid in full started accruing interest on 07/05/07 at 6.25% which would have been 0% since it was already paid in full.

At the end, if I pull out my money fast enough and pay that to Citi instead, I'll end up paying an extra $700~$800. I pray they will reverse the consolidation.

OK, so I pinged them through both the helpwithmybank.gov and BBB. I got a reply regarding the Comptroller letter. They basically said that they sent me letters and claimed I didn't respond. The rep writing the letter would not acknowledge their mistake. The reply was entirely dismissive and didn't offer any alternative resolution (I suggested that if their hands were tied restarting the loan, they could offer me TY points for their screwup).

Again, I sent them proof that I responded to the first letter by contacting all my lenders myself to process the consolidation, and also that I responded to the second letter with a copy of their form that I filled out and faxed back, authorizing them to contact my lenders directly to process the consolidation. I don't see what else I could have done.

The worst part about this reply is that they sent me a copy of a letter dated 9/29/2005, which is ENTIRELY different from the first letter I received dated 9/29/2005. I don't know if they are just on a different planet or if this is an attempt at wholesale fraud. Though it is really irrelevant to the issue because I had called them myself to ask WTF was going on with the loan, and found out that I needed to contact my lenders at that point, this really bothers me.

The rep also said that they didn't receive any of the letters returned to sender, so therefore I had full awareness of what was going on. IOW, a wholesale dismissal of my complaint that they did not ONCE take the initiative to call me or keep me informed in some more reliable and prompt manner than postal mail.

They haven't replied to the BBB complaint yet, but I'm not sure what to do at this point.

I am tempted to just send back again the actual letter I received on 9/29/2005 for contrast, as well as the form I sent them on 3/3/2006 -- with the part about Citibank contacting my lenders directly to resolve any issues heavily circled.

Call/Write the student loan ombudsman's office. They help settle disputes.

http://www.ombudsman.ed.gov/

I didn't read through all the posts, admittedly, so if this was already mentioned, I apologize.

stallion1031 said:Why be tempted? Just do it. Its not like you have anything to lose. Tell them that you think the State AG would love to hear their explanation as to why there are two different versions of one letter.I would love to hear why there are 2 versions of one letter also!

No doubt, they are going to say they send him 2 letters on that date.

[INSERT COLIN POWELL PICTURE HERE]

Amazing.

Even more amazing.

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement: "I have never had a problem with any part of Citibank outside of their student loan department. With student loans, however, it’s been one screw-up after another."

Next round. This was the lackey assigned to respond to the helpwithmybank.gov complaint.

Tom,

Regretfully, I have not received a return phone call from you in response to voice mail.

First, I am very curious why you have sent me a different letter dated 9/29/2005 than the one I received. The one I received stated that the loan application was continuing and that everything at that time seemed to be in order. That is in stark contrast to the one you are sending me now, which is very clear that there was a problem. This is only a curiosity, because it is irrelevant to the issue. I called Citibank on my own, independent of the snail-mail communication that quite clearly malfunctioned!

In your letter dated 7/26/2007, you claimed that I did not respond to Citibank's requests that I place my lenders into repayment. I can only assume that you did not examine the correspondence that I sent, because I included proof, in the form of dated and stamped fax transmissions, that I had done so on two separate occasions. The first occasion was when I had my university contact all the lenders and request that they place me into early repayment. After I contacted you in March of 2006 (having heard nothing since September of 2005) Citibank understood that Direct Loans still had not placed me into early repayment. Citibank sent me the form ""Request For Early Repayment - Agreement" which I filled out and faxed on 3/3/06. This form clearly states, as I have attached again for your reference:

I authorize Citibank to contact the lender(s) identified on my application to determine the eligibility and/or payoff amounts for the loans I have selected for consolidation. I further authorize these lenders to change the status on my loan(s) to repayment by waiving my in-school and grace periods, and to release the pertinent loan information to Citibank.

Tom, are you telling me it was prudent for Citibank to close the consolidation at this point, rather than directly contacting Direct Loans as this form authorized, and which I was led to believe would occur after I returned the form to Citibank?

Tom, I furthermore resent the dismissive tone of your previous letter and your failure to return my phone correspondence. I have contacted Citibank no less than five times regarding this issue and have met with the same unprofessional, dismissive attitude at every point. Since both you and I know that Citibank is in the unique position of being the only consolidator that can fix the problem at this point due to the new federal regulations, you can expect to be hearing from me on a continuous basis until the point when I am legally allowed to take my student loan business elsewhere -- as well as my banking and credit card business, if Citibank fails to make amends. From this point, I expect a customer-focused attitude and a willingness to put right what has been done wrong. Even if you are unwilling to restart the existing consolidation, you know full well there are other reasonable ways to make amends for the error, given that I have several bank accounts and credit cards with Citibank.

I expect a response SPECIFICALLY addressing the points I have made above.

Tom called me back to tell me that he is in the process of negotiating with my student loan lenders, regarding the terms on the form I sent them, and he will call me back by Monday with an update to tell me "what we can and cannot do".

Score! ... maybe.

i consolidate with my through Citi 2 years back and it took like 7 months for the whole thing. right before the rates went up. i called and they said no matter when it's done i'll get the good rate which i did. they said there was a flood of applications and they sat on the floor for months while people processed them

congratulations on your success! your perseverance finally paid off and i'm really happy for you!!!