It has been an extremely long and arduous process, but after 3+ months of Hell I have finally acquired my Massachusetts license plates! And with this finally taken care of, I can finally consider myself completely moved in and am now a certified MASShole.

The reason that it’s taken this long is that CitiFinancial is completely inept and seemingly loves to employ ill-informed and ignorant morons. I had refinanced with them for a lower APR back in June 2007 but upon trying to renew my registration in California before I moved out to Boston, I found that I couldn’t because the title transfer from Wells Fargo to CitiFinancial had never taken place — despite the fact that they had the loan for more than a year. This was just the start of the shit I had to deal with to get everything straightened out, much to my dismay.

I called Citi to try and rectifiy this and I was immediately given a taste of their horrible India-based customer service reps who could speak perfectly clear English but couldn’t actually speak or understand the language. I could try to explain, but I don’t. Call them if you want to hear what I’m talking about. After being on the phone for a while trying to explain my predicament, I was transfered to a US-based title department who informed me that they didn’t have the title yet because Wells Fargo never sent them the lien release. For a second, I believed them and thought that Wells Fargo deserved my ire instead. I was wrong.

I called Wells Fargo, who had a very knowledgeable and helpful customer service department, and they claimed to have sent the docs, both via fax and FedEx. I called Citi back and they said they never got it. I called Wells Fargo back to see if they could send again and they quickly did. I follwed with a call to Citi and they confirmed that the fax was received and that they’d have my shit taken care of in a week. All was well, right? Not even close.

After a week passed, I called back and had to completely explain my entire predicament again because the India-based customer service wasn’t allowed to send me to the title department immediately. After 15+ mins, they told me that they still were waiting for the docs from Wells Fargo — the same docs that I had CONFIRMED they had received. This didn’t matter to them and kept saying they didn’t have anything. I repeated the whole fax thing and the subsquent confirmation and the subsequent denial of receival another TWO more times. After the 3rd mishap, I had Wells Fargo fax ME and FedEx ME the docs and then I personally sent them both to Citi via fax and FedEx and confirmed the reception of both. They FINALLY got it.

After this, I was told that it would be a few days before they had the title and could provide me the title # and other information from the title that I needed to get my CA registration converted to MA. I called in two days and still nothing. I would be told to call in another couple days and I’d have to do this for at least a month. Each time was like the first time I called and I always had to spend 10+ minutes trying to get them caught up to date with the situation. I was even told dozens of times the whole story of them still waiting on the documents from Wells Fargo — after which I’d have to explain that they already had them and eventually they would realize that they did.

This dragged on for 3+ months and the ineptitude of this company’s customer service was downright disgraceful. I was told incorrect information on every single phone call. I was told that they don’t have the title # because it’s electronic and that I had to call the DMV — which I’d call and have some rep laugh and tell me that the lienholder is required to have copies of all titles, including electronic ones. Yeah, makes complete sense.

After months of frustration, Citi FINALLY got a hold of the copy of the title this past Monday and I was finally able to call Progressive with the title information so I could get the RMV-1 from them and get my damn car registered. But even that didn’t go smoothly because my CA registration had my previous lienholder on it so I needed Citi to fax the RMV a copy of the title. I dreaded the call cause I just KNEW it wouldn’t be easy. The first response was that they DIDN’T HAVE A COPY OF THE TITLE BECAUSE IT’S ELECTRONIC and that it’d take 45 days for them to get it!

Really? They got the copy on Monday and that’s how I got the information from them. I explained this to them and after another 5 minute hold while the customer service rep spoke with the title department, the service rep came back and said they would fax it in 3-4 hours. Umm, I was AT the RMV and they would be closed in one hour. NO WAY! After yet more very calm and reserved bitching, I was able to get them to fax it immediately.

The good news is that I was finally able to get my MA license plates and that shit is now completely behind me. I also am glad that I will hopefully never have to deal with this company’s customer service ever again. Part of me wants to get my loan refinanced with someone else IMMEDIATELY but I’m a little scared about what kind of a clusterfuck that might turn into. I should do it out of principal but am scared of any potential headaches that I may incur.