Consumer complaint received 2023-06-26
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: CA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Problem making or receiving payments

Complaint:
On XX/XX/23 I received a phone call from who I was deceived in to believing was a Citibank Employee. They called me from the Citi number ( XXXX ) XXXX. I was on the phone with them from XXXX XXXX- XXXX. During this time my account was hacked while I was on the phone and my password was changed, there was a {$2000.00} transfer from my checking plus account to my checking account, my email was removed from XXXX. I did not authorize any of these changes. I was on the phone while all of this occurred. The person who claimed to be a citi employee told me that there was a fraudulent XXXX payment made in the amount of {$2500.00}, and that the money was taken out of my account. They told me not to worry and that they would be working with XXXX to get this money refunded to me. In order to do this I was going to have to issue a XXXX payment refund to myself. They told me they were speaking with the XXXX supervisor XXXX XXXX, and they would be issuing the refund of {$2500.00} in to my account. They told me the available funds were {$1600.00} but were not reflecting on my account yet. They had me select myself as the recipient of my XXXX transaction. From my recipients list it said my name and had my email address. I selected myself and they told me the refund would reflect immediately once it happened. I started to issue the payment and saw that the name XXXX XXXX appeared under my email address. They told me that it was the XXXX employee who he previously mentioned who was authorizing the refund. My email still appeared under the recipient and I had selected myself from my list of payees. As soon as the payment was sent a {$2000.00} credit appeared in my account. Thats when I panicked because it was still short {$500.00}. The scammer said that there was a {$2000.00} limit on the refund and I would need to repeat the process again tomorrow to get the remaining {$500.00}. What I did not know at the time was that the scammers had transferred {$2000.00} from checking plus account in to my checking account. There was a thread of emails from Citibank that I never received while I was on the phone with them. They had access to my email account somehow and opened and removed these emails. There was one at XXXX from Citi indicating that my password had been updated. At XXXX there was an email from Citibank saying that my email address had been removed from XXXX. There was also an email from XXXX XXXX XXXX with XXXX with a confirmation number, even though i dont have a checking account with XXXX. And then at XXXX there was an email from Citibank saying that my {$2000.00} transfer from my checking plus account had been authorized. I never received these emails as they were removed without my knowledge. I just found them on the server a few days after the fact on accident while searching for other citi emails. They had been opened and deleted by someone else. I did not authorize any of these changes or moving of funds. The moving of the {$2000.00} made it appear that there had been a credit issued to my account when in fact it was just the scammers moving my checking plus amount to my checking account. This was fraud. Please help me get my money back. I need this money to live. How were they able to hack in to my account and make all of these unauthorized changes? I am beyond frustrated with Citibank as they have done absolutely nothing to help me get my money back. They told me to file a dispute and then just denied the dispute because i initiated the payment. It was made under false pretenses and i was scammed. Please help me. I have call logs, and copies of the emails that were accessed from my email account by the scammers.

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