Consumer complaint received 2022-10-16
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: GA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX major outgoing wire transactions ( totaling {$49000.00} ) were made from my Citibank Checking Account that were not made by myself or any of the authorized signers on the account ( including my father, who is a joint account signer ). The details on the accounts are below. Citibank denied our claim of fraud and was negligent in recovering funds and working through their investigation. 

Account details : On XX/XX/XXXX, unauthorized wire transfers for {$32000.00} and for {$17000.00} was made out of my Citi Checking Account and sent to the recipients below : Cases opened with Citibank : XXXX for {$17000.00} XXXX wired to XXXX XXXX - XXXX XXXX XXXX account XXXX for {$32000.00} Money wired to XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX Account We were never notified of any unusual activity, and all notifications on all our Citibank checking and savings accounts were disabled, except for the change of contact info.

We did not have all of these settings disabled prior to the attack. We were not notified our settings were changed/disabled to be able to catch the fraud ahead of time. 
Citibank told us they do not keep audit log records of account level changes. 

We should have been notified when all the accounts were drained of their money ( inter-account transfers ) and definitely should have been notified when large wire transfers were initiated. 

Upon realizing all the money was stolen, we tried calling Citibank numerous times on XX/XX/XXXX and struggled getting through to their wire fraud division to help pull the money back. 

We tried calling Citibank all afternoon and had a horrible experience, which caused major delays in reporting the issue. The pending wire transfer was unable to be recalled due to the horrible phone system and extremely long wait times. 
We were transferred many times to different groups. 
Multiple calls were disconnected, further delaying the reporting and stopping of this crime. We were on hold for hours. 

The evening of XX/XX/XXXX, I called into Citibank, I was sent to the wire fraud reporting team which had a message that they closed at XXXX. It was after XXXX, so I was unable to report the fraud that night. 

Apparently we were transferred to the wrong group, as XXXX fraud department is open until XXXX ET. This was precious time that was wasted by Citi having a terrible phone system and customer support team. 

Wire fraud was reported to Citibank on XX/XX/XXXX in the morning once we got through their long wait time. Nearly XXXX hours had passed by this point, since we were not notified of suspicious activity and were unable to successfully report the fraud on the day of the crime due to the phone system issues and long wait times. 
Our case was sent to Citibanks IRU division The overall investigation was supposed to take XXXX days per the IRU. The investigation took almost 120 days ( from XX/XX/XXXX until XX/XX/XXXX ) with very little communication back from Citibank. See attached notes for details of call records. 
This period of time was very taxing on my family- it was months of not having access to our savings we worked so hard for ( money to pay bills, buy food, etc. ). 
There have been XXXX credits issued totaling {$15000.00} without any notification or explanation. I had to call into XXXX Fraud Department to find out what was going on. 
On XX/XX/XXXX - a credit was issued for {$7000.00} On XX/XX/XXXX - a credit was issued for {$8200.00} We are still missing {$33000.00}. 

On XX/XX/XXXX - I called into the Citibank XXXX and spoke to XXXX - Our case is almost over. The case is in your favor. No info on timeline. I asked to file a complaint since it was taking so long to be evaluated. 
This made us feel like we were going to get all our money back. 
We also filed police reports ( and obtained affidavits- attached ), an FBI report, and have opened an appeal with Citibank. 
Citibank has been unable to provide audit logs of those who have logged into our account and when logs of when settings were changed and notifications XXXX, etc. 
Citis communication and attention to detail is extremely lacking. 

We believe we deserve a full credit back of the remaining {$33000.00} due to Citibanks neglect in swiftly resolving this case and recovering the funds. Causing us to wait nearly 120 days from a case worker being assigned and being promised the case was in our favor led to immense struggle on my entire family not only financially but also emotionally and mentally. 

We have spent many, many hours on the phone trying to get our money back from Citibank, and we are filing a complaint at how poorly they handled our money being stolen via fraudulent wire transfers.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation