Citi Bank Cannot Fax or Email Outside of Citi Bank

As a dedicated Sacramento Realtor who gets things done, it is not beyond the scope of my ability to take matters into my two hands, if I have to do it, to close a sale. I am a problem solver. In fact, sometimes other agents call me, agents I don’t even know, and ask me to solve problems for them. If it’s interesting enough, I might help them out, but I don’t get paid for that. So don’t read this and think it’s OK to call Elizabeth Weintraub and ask for help because it’s really not. If I’m not your agent or about to become your agent, don’t call me.

Back in the old days, in the 1970s, I could bill an hourly rate for real estate services like that. Especially if I didn’t particularly feel like talking to somebody, I could name some outrageous fee like $1,000, and they would still pay it, so I stopped that practice. Today, I charge my normal commission and that’s all I get. I work harder on some transactions than others, so it all evens out in the end.

Often, though, it’s the smaller transactions that require a lot more work, the ones that I barely make enough to cover my piddly mortgage payment, which has another 5 years or so to go and will be paid off under a 15-year mortgage. I know this only because I went to Citi Bank yesterday to pick up a short sale approval letter for a client from Roseville. You would think nobody would have to do this, especially not a Sacramento Realtor, and that Citi Bank could email the approval letter for a short sale but no, they can’t even manage to do that.

First, they said they mailed the letter to the property address, where nobody lives. That’s brilliant. Second, they said they mailed the approval letter to my office more than a week ago, and when they offered to mail the letter again, that’s where I stepped in to stop this nonsense. It was ridiculous, for starters. This was approved in mid March according to the negotiator and here it was April 9th, and we don’t have the letter, and they can’t fax or email it?

I threw myself on the mercy of a bank teller at Citi Bank and obtained an email address and phone number. However, the negotiator still refused to send the approval letter unless I was standing there in the bank in front of the bank teller. Where is a hologram when you need it? Well, as long as I was there, may as well see what services Citi Bank has to offer. They offer a credit card that pays you 2% in cash back and no annual fee, providing you pay your account in full. That beats the Chase Sapphire. So I had them sign me up for it while I was there, although I wonder how long that will last, and also got my hot little hands on that darned approval letter. Two birds with one stone. But I would have gone there anyway just for the stinkin’ letter. You do what ya gotta do.