After their mortgage was sold to CitiMortgage, Jeff and Evelyne Butler noticed something wrong with their mortgage statements.

They showed them owing seven thousand dollars more on the principle than they thought they did.

With their kids sitting at the dining room table drawing pictures, Jeff and Evelyne Butler's home looks like a Norman Rockwell painting.

But they say what they've gone through with their mortgage company is far from the American dream.

"Extremely frustrating," said Jeff describing dealing with CitiMortgage, "It started a year and a half ago but didn't reach peak until May."

That's because in May, the Butlers realized paying their mortgage had become a struggle and asked for a loan modification.

But how much CitiMortgage said the Butlers owed, and what the Butlers thought they owed, didn't match.

Jeff says his bank statements show he paid seven thousand dollars more than CitiMortgage's records.

"We requested an audit then. And we have yet to see an audit," said Jeff.

Jeff has stacks of certified receipts from the past three months showing he mailed copies of his records to CitiMortgage.

"I sent documentation in May and sent it to research department, customer service departments, numerous places," said Jeff.

He says CitiMortgage told him to stop paying his mortgage until they could straighten everything out and get his loan modified.

"You may as well save your money. This is what they told us," said Jeff.

He says they told him he would pay those payments when they modified the loan.

In July, the Butlers received a default notice and watched their credit scores tumble, even though CitiMortgage told them to stop paying.

Jeff's still waiting to see what happened to the seven thousand dollars.

"We have gotten no response and we have asked for this for a long time," said Jeff about requesting an audit of his account.

After the butlers sent CitiMortgage a letter letting them know they were doing an interview with WINK NEWS, a representative from Citi finally gave them a call and asked for the Butlers to mail their records again.

CALL FOR ACTION received this response from CitiMortgage:

Due to privacy constraints, we cannot comment on individual cases. On request, we gather and fully document payment history details for customers. Once this has been completed, which may take some research and time, we communicate our findings to the customer as promptly as possible. Our primary objective is to keep distressed borrowers out of foreclosure and in their homes. Since the beginning of 2007, Citi has worked successfully with approximately 625,000 homeowners to avoid potential foreclosure.


If you have a mortgage modification situation you'd like us to look into--please let us know by sending an email to melissa.yeager@winktv.com.