Henry and his wife went broke, then worked out a payment plan with Citibank to settle their debt. The idea was to be proactive in order to avoid harassment about bills they couldn’t afford.

Henry says the plan backfired because of Citi’s incompetence. The bank told him it’s screwed up some planned transfers, but that hasn’t stop bank reps from calling him and his wife 20 times a day to hassle him for the cash.

He writes:

I am writing today to see if I can enlist your help with getting something taken care of. I have tried in vain to work with Citibank to settle a debt and they just can’t seem to get it correct or stop harassing us with incessant phone calls.

The basic story is that my wife and I were both Realtors who hit rock bottom, lost our home, and we basically have nothing left. We offered to settle a large debt with Citibank and gave them the first payment of almost $4000 dollars while scheduling the additional 2 payments of $2000 within 90 days providing that they would settle the debt, close the account and leave us alone.

To take the first payment they took our account information and did a basic money transfer. The problem is that they can’t figure out how to do that again for the additional 2 payments. In the meantime they continue to harass us by calling about 20 times a day. We have spoken to numerous “escalation specialists” and they each confirm “yes this our mistake”, yet they never resolve this and are now telling us that they don’t know if they will honor the debt settlement. It’s their fault, there is nothing we can do except give them the money. They basically refuse to take it, but continue the harassment.

Enough is enough.

You might want to look over this information from the FTC. Specifically, about how to get a debt collector to stop contacting you. This may or may not work, since it’s your actual bank that is contacting you and not a third party, but it might be worth trying:

How can I stop a debt collector from contacting me?

If a collector contacts you about a debt, you may want to talk to them at least once to see if you can resolve the matter – even if you don’t think you owe the debt, can’t repay it immediately, or think that the collector is contacting you by mistake. If you decide after contacting the debt collector that you don’t want the collector to contact you again, tell the collector – in writing – to stop contacting you. Here’s how to do that:

Make a copy of your letter. Send the original by certified mail, and pay for a “return receipt” so you’ll be able to document what the collector received. Once the collector receives your letter, they may not contact you again, with two exceptions: a collector can contact you to tell you there will be no further contact or to let you know that they or the creditor intend to take a specific action, like filing a lawsuit. Sending such a letter to a debt collector you owe money to does not get rid of the debt, but it should stop the contact. The creditor or the debt collector still can sue you to collect the debt.

Of course, this won’t solve the problem of them refusing to take your money — so you might want to try an EECB (Executive Email Carpet Bomb) before you order them to leave you alone.

If that fails, you might want to consider getting a lawyer.

Debt Collection FAQs: A Guide for Consumers [FTC]

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