02-12-2007, 07:50 AM
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Senior Member
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 456
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dilmun
We have some problems with Citibank. We lived for some years in Bahrain/Middle East and had opened an account with the Citibank Bahrain. When we moved from Bahrain in December 2004 we still had and still have a personal loan with the Citibank Bahrain. But since we moved from Bahrain we did not receive one single statement, also we requested them again and again and again. We continued paying the monthly installments but we have no clue, whether they received the money or not. In December we moved again. So we did not pay any installments through December up to today. Now they started to call my poor mother-in-law in Denmark (!) at all times through the day and even late evenings (9pm!). She knows nothing and is quite upset, because they told her, that they would send her the bailiff and on top of this, they deny to give their name. And my mother-in-law, of course, denies to speak to them without having a name.
The Citibank Bahrain tried not even once to contact us, the customers! They always had our e-mail address, which in all these years never changed. And the Citibank Bahrain not even once gave us any statements since December 2004. I find this behaviour not only shady but harrassing my poor mother-in-law extremely repellent! Is this legal? What about financial privacy?
We would like to settle everything once and for all with this Citibank, but since we don't have any statements, we have no clue how.
So, I hope, you can help somehow with this muckheap of a bank.
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If you reside in the United States, you're referring to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act or FDCPA which strictly prohibits the type of behaviour you're describing concerning your mother in law. In particular, section 806 strictly forbids harrassment in attempting to collect on the loan; more information may be available on the following link:
http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fdcpa/fdcpact.htm
Regardless of whether you received statements or not, you're bound by the terms of your original agreement if you still owed on the loan at the time you moved. Do you know if a balance still remains? The simple withdrawal from your own bank account at the time you made payments is receipt enough .. you may want to check back during the times you said you didn't receive a statement and see if corresponding withdrawals in the same amount appear on your monthly statements prior to December. If so, obviously your payment was received.
A telephone call to Citibank will probably resolve most of your questions. If you know there's still a balance owing, then quite simply you should fulfill the terms of your contract. At the same time, you should let Citibank know the tactics of their collections department, citing the law above.
Good luck.
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