Citigroup and one mans troubles...
Posted by Michele Newsom on Thursday, March 3, 2011
Posting this here as it pertains to my dealing with Citi and has some decent info from another persons point of view...
My suggestions is to read the whole forum thread as there is a LOT of info there to help...
I work in financials as a financial researcher, and was very aware of the liquidity troubles that Citi was (at the time privately) facing. I tried to use that as leverage, using a common sense approach, but Donna was unable to
1) Admit that CitiGroup was facing any type of asset troubles
2) Perform the mental exercise of iterating through all of the available options and determining which one was in the best interest for everyone involved (me, Citi and the investors that hold the notes)
She also resorted to petty finger pointing, attempting to make points that stress this is all somehow my fault and that her taking the time to speak to me was a service I should be appreciative of.
I replied that this was more Citigroups fault than anyone's, and followed up with the reasons for my assertion.
1) Citi helped invent and actively market the derivatives that caused the whole mess the world is facing
2) Citi "bought" Ameriquest knowing full well the risk exposure that these Ameriquest / Town & Country mortgage backed securities contained.
3) They ignored step 2 because they didn't really care about morals and were more than willing to exploit the people that received predatory and inflated Ameriquest/Argent/T&C loans for potentially big profits. For evidence one merely has to look back on the Ameriquest settlement.
4) Point 3 is really bewildering when considering that Citi has enormous teams of talented analyst's that would never have given these securities high ratings unless there were personal incentives persuading them to do so.
5) Citigroup has enormous amounts of off-books debt, creating more debt by foreclosing on more homes doesn't make much sense.
6) Modifying the interest terms of a mortgage doesn't create a net loss for Citi, it simply reduces the profitability on that specific note; but which is better, less profitability or taking a realized loss?
At the time, I knew Citigroup was reporting 1.7 Trillion in assets, but I also had it on good word that they have upwards of $50 Billion in off books debt.
Now that the game has had some more time to play out we realize that Citi is in much worse shape than even I thought.
The events of the past 2 months have changed the game, and Citi should be significantly modifying the interest rates on tons bad and underwater loans, but they're not.
Even while Citi continues to operate on the bail-out money. They certainly had no problems getting help when THEY needed it, but unfortunately they are still unwilling to
work in the best interest of anyone but themselves. If that means you or I lose our homes, they don't care. They won't take any responsibility for their own actions, but yet that seemed to be a common
theme that Donna kept espousing to me.
They only reason I got a mod is because I got my senator and state representatives directly involved.
If you are having problems obtaining a modification with Citi, I would suggest that you try the same strategy.
http://www.loansafe.org/forum/citi-mortgage/5076-citi-mortgage-citi-financial-special-contact-information-3.html
My suggestions is to read the whole forum thread as there is a LOT of info there to help...
I work in financials as a financial researcher, and was very aware of the liquidity troubles that Citi was (at the time privately) facing. I tried to use that as leverage, using a common sense approach, but Donna was unable to
1) Admit that CitiGroup was facing any type of asset troubles
2) Perform the mental exercise of iterating through all of the available options and determining which one was in the best interest for everyone involved (me, Citi and the investors that hold the notes)
She also resorted to petty finger pointing, attempting to make points that stress this is all somehow my fault and that her taking the time to speak to me was a service I should be appreciative of.
I replied that this was more Citigroups fault than anyone's, and followed up with the reasons for my assertion.
1) Citi helped invent and actively market the derivatives that caused the whole mess the world is facing
2) Citi "bought" Ameriquest knowing full well the risk exposure that these Ameriquest / Town & Country mortgage backed securities contained.
3) They ignored step 2 because they didn't really care about morals and were more than willing to exploit the people that received predatory and inflated Ameriquest/Argent/T&C loans for potentially big profits. For evidence one merely has to look back on the Ameriquest settlement.
4) Point 3 is really bewildering when considering that Citi has enormous teams of talented analyst's that would never have given these securities high ratings unless there were personal incentives persuading them to do so.
5) Citigroup has enormous amounts of off-books debt, creating more debt by foreclosing on more homes doesn't make much sense.
6) Modifying the interest terms of a mortgage doesn't create a net loss for Citi, it simply reduces the profitability on that specific note; but which is better, less profitability or taking a realized loss?
At the time, I knew Citigroup was reporting 1.7 Trillion in assets, but I also had it on good word that they have upwards of $50 Billion in off books debt.
Now that the game has had some more time to play out we realize that Citi is in much worse shape than even I thought.
The events of the past 2 months have changed the game, and Citi should be significantly modifying the interest rates on tons bad and underwater loans, but they're not.
Even while Citi continues to operate on the bail-out money. They certainly had no problems getting help when THEY needed it, but unfortunately they are still unwilling to
work in the best interest of anyone but themselves. If that means you or I lose our homes, they don't care. They won't take any responsibility for their own actions, but yet that seemed to be a common
theme that Donna kept espousing to me.
They only reason I got a mod is because I got my senator and state representatives directly involved.
If you are having problems obtaining a modification with Citi, I would suggest that you try the same strategy.
http://www.loansafe.org/forum/citi-mortgage/5076-citi-mortgage-citi-financial-special-contact-information-3.html