Citimortgage's unsolicited offer - partially modified payment agreement - what's its impact on FICO?

[haulingthescoreup]

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@Anonymous wrote:

If you can believe it, Citi modified my loan even though we never accepted their offer. Their system shows that they've reversed my Dec. 2010 and Jan. 2011 payments, reapplied them to the new due amount (lower) and said I have a surplus to contribute towards my principal. And then today, I got a letter saying that my loan is in default. They are messed up beyond imagination.

I just can't believe how incompetent and screwed up these people are. What are your suggestions?  Wait and see if the loan mod actually affects our credit score. If it does, call Citi to reverse the transacxtion. If not, just let it go?

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  I'd be on the phone with a lawyer.

If that feels like overkill, I'd call my local paper and/or TV stations and try to get their consumer affairs reporter interested in your case. Sadly, it seems to take adverse publicity to get a lot of the banks to admit that they screwed up and restore the consumer's account and credit reports.

[Anonymous]

I received the same letter and I suspect that Citi's motivation is to dump as many of these "risky" loans as possible. My letter refers to "Investor Loan#" in the upper right hand corner. Once we accept the new terms offered by Citi, they have a loan they can resell on the 2ndary mortgage market - just like before the meltdown, except now its a fixed rate 30 yr loan at a competitive APR % (5% in my case) - they write down the loan, report us to the credit bureaus as "less than creditworthy" and I assume that comment stays on the report for the life of the new loan (30yrs); and they sell the loan to a 3rd party investor group and the new loan would be serviced by some 3rd party (wall street group) like a Litton Loan Servicing or Aurora Loans (part of the old Lehman Bros or Goldman Sachs groups) They are very aggressive about getting paid. They call you every day with an automated call center message about your payment being due "starting on the first and continuing thru the 15th of each month". Believe me when I tell you they are very aggressive. Either they don't care about the individual State's restrictions predatory lending behavior or they are located in State's that have none. They call at dinner time, or late in the evening. They call you at work and on weekends. Realistically, their current offer reduces my payment by 25% each month but over the life of the loan Citi receipts are reduced by only 10%. I've already paid them 5 yrs at my current rate and the mod would restructure the remaining term to a 30 year, instead of the 25 years remaining. Although it is attractive at first glance, I don't think I am going to accept their offer! I didn't ask for it and the strings attached are unclear. Who knows maybe Citi is so anxious to get me off their books, they might improve their offer in the future? If I'm going to take a hit on my FICO score and put up with harrassing phone calls, it had better be worth more than only a 10% reduction. Especially since Citi gets a 20% payment from the FDIC in exchange for this10% mod - in other words they make 10% on the mod. I think they should pass thru the 20% from the FDIC and maybe then I will consider it.

[Anonymous]

I got the same offer, and i'm leaning toward accepting it. 

 How can Citi report a severely negative score on the borrower  to the Credit Agencies if they're the ones offering the Mod, and it's only a Mod in Terms. Seems like they'd be setting themselves up for a Class Action, if they pulled that. There's no principal reduction, so it seems like there would be a slight 'hit' , if any from Citi.  Although  there could poss be another or even a better offer down the line, there may also not be any subsequent offer.  There's no way i can stay in my home once the 7 yrs hits(2013) and my mortgage adjusts . I have exactly 2 wks to make a decision and accept or refuse the offer.

Really wish there was more info on the web, especially from borrowers who've accepted the offer and then checked for any impact on their credit since they've accepted it.  Anyone?

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

We accepted this offer in December and saw only a 7 point drop in our credit as of March. We think this is because we signed up for a phone line and they ran a report, not because of the offer.

Our offer did not reduce principal, but did convert our 5 year 6% ARM to a 4.625% 30-year fixed on a jumbo loan.

Best of luck to you all!

[Anonymous]

Does the notation "paying under a modified payment agreement" or "loan modification" etc. show up in your credit report besides the7 point drop?

[Anonymous]

We only see the score, not the notations.

[Anonymous]

So, you didn't see any notation about "loan modification" in your credit report or you do not have access to the notation portion of your credit report?

[Anonymous]

We can only see our score when we check the report, we couldn't see how it was reported. The score is our concern, though, not the method of reporting. Reporting notations only matters when they affect your score, no?

What is your concern with the notation outside of its effect on the score?

[Anonymous]

My mortgage broker told me that some banks may look at the notation and refuse to do loans for anyone with the "loan modification" in their record regardless of their score.  Others may be ok.

The score can recover but FICO and the 3 credit bureaus told me that any notation will stay with your record for 7 years.

Did you check that?