Yesterday I blogged about a comment Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit said during his testimony before the House Financial Services Committee. He was bemoaning the fact that troubled borrowers don’t attempt to contact their lenders. In fact, he claims that half the foreclosures at Citi were “for people we’ve never talked to.”
Pandit told the panel of lawmakers: “The challenge is when times get tough, people don’t want to own up and say hey I’m going to have an issue, and so people put their heads in the sand and they don’t own up, and that’s really a bad place to be.”
Well I got tremendous reader response to these claims.
I’d crash the system if I posted them all, so here are a representative few. Mr. Pandit, you might want to read them:
Craig in Hawaii:Citi CEO, Vikram Pandit, is the one with his “head in the sand”. I’ve personally been waiting a modification from Citi on my mortgage for 6 Months!!! I was proactive and first contacted them in August 2008, 4 months before my Adjustable Rate Mortgage was due to reset. It’s Feb 11th, 2009 and I’m still awaiting an answer.
Scott:I have been working with Citigroup for 5 months on my loan but have yet to see any results from them on helping out at all get the run around every time.
Michael in Chicago: The biggest impediment to foreclosure mitigation at Citi is Citi. We approached Citi several times to work out our options. Their answer? Raise our payment $600 more per month. Even the mitigation specialist at Citi admitted it was a waste of everyone’s time. Vikram needs to rub the sand out of his eyes and look inside his own firm.
Bob: Vikram Pandit's remarks are ludicrous - I've tried three times to reach my lender and been hung up on three times! He's full of it.
Kaye in Ohio:In a recent phone call to my own mortgage company, it took me 2-1/2 hours on the phone to reach a person who understood English. In my first call during that time period, the ‘consultant’ attempted to repeat back what I was saying and got it completely turned around. When I asked for a supervisor, she hung up on me. I was hung up on twice more in my re-dials.
- Wall Street CEOs feel the rage in Washington
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