Consumer complaint received 2023-07-07
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: MI
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Credit card debt
Issue: Attempts to collect debt not owed
Sub-issue: Debt was paid

Complaint:
OnXX/XX/XXXX I used Best buy Auto payments to pay my bill for XXXX. This was the end of a promotion so I paid off the remaining total XXXX before the due date on XXXX XXXX Best Buy wrote down. I only paid XXXX My bank account reflected that the XXXX left my account on XXXX XXXX. At that time, my Best Buy account statement did not reflect my payment for XXXX  As a matter of fact, they increased my interest rate that months by falsely stating they did not receive my payment to pay off the last month of a promotion. At that time  it was disputed that they were paid. Best Buy citibank credit card services said they would fix the discrepancy. Instead they applied my payment for XXXX to the following month XXXX and kept the high interest rate penalty for not making the end of promotion payment in XXXX. By adding it to XXXX, theyre admitting that I made the payment on time and that the only reason I got charged eith high interest rate is because they falsified my payment History. This is reflected in the statement on XX/XX/XXXXThe exact payment for XXXX is reflected on the XXXX account statement. It is obvious that we called in to fix it immediately after the discrepancy was identified. I could not identify a discrepancy until I received the account statement. 

Upon realizing that I was still paying on some thing that should have been paid off a long time ago. I called Best Buy again to figure out why it had not been paid off. XXXX a month for a bill that should be completely paid for by now and after calculating it out, they owe me money. When calling in to resolve the matter, I was informed that they cannot see the records that far back so I had Best Buy snail mail me my records and this is how I discovered that Best Buy never fixed their discrepancy from XX/XX/XXXX which you can see by the XX/XX/XXXXstatement that they were contacted and informed to correct my payment history.  It was their system or their personnel that did not apply the payment correctly. It left my bank on time. I disputed it at that time which is why its reflected on the very next months account statement. After receiving the records, I called Best Buy to make a dispute, but due to them sending me the monthly statements records out of order, I could not quite figure out exactly what was wrong, so I had to call back and make a second dispute after I put the months in chronological order. I was told at that time by the employee which was a male that it would be resolved. I called back in at that time to find out if it was resolved, and I was informed by a female employee that the only way that you can make a dispute is by sending my dispute via mail to My Best Buy Credit Card Services, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. This completely contradicted with a male employee said. I was informed there was no way to email Best Buy and this was the only way to contact them to resolve a dispute they consider to be out of their current date range and accessible on their computers. This is a lie because when I called back 11 business days ago another employee pulled up the records right there on the phone with me after I told them I had already sent in a dispute letter and they hadnt responded pass. The time frame that they said they were going to respond. I mailed them the screenshots from my bank account as requested along with correlating copies of the Best Buy account statements onXX/XX/XXXXI was informed that in 30-90 days I would have a response from Best Buy. I received no response from Best Buy. I called back in and Best Buy claimed they never received the letter at all. On XX/XX/XXXX I spoke to Employee ID Z19058 and was informed that the matter would be resolved in 7 to 10 business days. I called back on the 11th business day today, the XXXX XXXX XXXX, and was informed by XXXX an account verification specialist, that they could only fix the payment for that promotion month in XX/XX/XXXX unless I had disputed it before or on the same month according to the fine print. I did disputed it at that time and Best Buy assured me at that time that it would be resolved and I believed them. 
I made the payment for XX/XX/XXXXon time and then I had to wait for the account statement to find out they claimed they received no end of promotion payment.  IlThere is no way for me to know if Best Buy is going to act like the money didnt show up in their bank account until i recieve their account statement! I had to call them and tell them Oh yes you did get that money and then they were like you are right we did only for them to pay it to the wrong month! Im not talking to kindergartners learning math who  dont know how to read, write, and add Im talking a full grown adults which makes me think they know what theyre doing and its fraud and they are con artists. Unless maybe I was talking to children and they are participating in breaking child labor laws.
 I have spoken to multiple Best Buy employees at this point, and none of them have informed me until now that they could never resolve it and the only thing that they could do was give me XXXX. I have probably paid well over XXXX due to the incorrect high interest penalty for XX/XX/XXXX andXX/XX/XXXX. I didnt do anything wrong as a customer and it is their employees and their company that falsely documented my payment history. And, now they claim they never received the certified mail with proof of that. XXXX  actually tried to tell me to send it again and wait another 30 to 90 days while simultaneously telling me that the only way I couldve gotten it resolved is if I had done it in a certain amount of time. They cant read They cant write. They cant do math. They dont report things in a timely manner and when you contact them, they never respond. They have no brick and mortar building and every time you call you get a different customer service representative. I have spent hours upon hours upon hours trying to resolve this with Best Buy and I have been lied to and misled and punished for their incompetence and gross negligence. Icing in the cake, today, I have now been told there is nothing I can do about it. Its fraudulent, I have paid my bill off and they are trying to keep me in eternal debt to them by falsifying my payment history and then furthermore disregarding all evidence, giving me no way to contact them except for mail in the 21st century, and then, claiming they didnt even receive the mail, but the United States, postal service certified. They did deliver it to their XXXX XXXX which is the only way I can deliver any documentation that I paid them on time. They refuse to accept email because it will be dated and they cannot deny they received it which is why I sent it certified mail.  No matter what I did Best Buy was determined to steal from me, regardless of anything I did as a customer and that is the definition of a confidence scheme or trick to deceive Someone out of their hard earned money. I cant dispute what Best Buy did until the next month when I receive an updated account statement. Regardless of that, I paid on time and anything else they say after that is to trick me out of my money. XXXX  stated that I had to make a dispute the month before or on the same month. I DID dispute it at that time. I made my payment ON TIME and when the dispute was made THEY AGREED at that time and there is no reason a customer should suffer for a companys GROSS NEGLIGENCE or INCOMPETENCE. The only reason I need to make a dispute it because they screwed up! And then, would you look at that, its so common practice for them to screw over their customers that they made a rule for it! Knowing full well theyre tactic is to claim the customer didnt pay and then subsequently never fix it when the customer reports it. They take your money thaf they know they already have and then apply it to the wrong payment period. Because they specifically made a rule for end of promotion payments that prevents customers from paying it off. I paid it off on XX/XX/XXXX and I have been paying for it all the way into XX/XX/XXXX because they refuse to admit I paid it off in XX/XX/XXXX. Its fraud and because Ive been taking so much money they know they XX/XX/XXXX probably well over XX/XX/XXXX 
Penal Code section 487 defines grand theft in California. In California, grand theft consists of stealing money, labor, real property, or personal property with a value exceeding XX/XX/XXXX. Every payment I make Im not supposed to be making because of their fraud increases their penalty. The pictures I attached are of the day I went into the UPS store and painstakingly wrote up what happened and then attached screenshots of my bank account and copies of the account statements for the months I received high interest for payments that were paid on time.  XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX Automatic payments dont work with Best Buy because somehow theyre automatic system randomly acts like you never paid anything or you paid less than what you actually did. Which means they are falsifying their customers payment history on purpose. Each page is numbered. I have a witness at theXX/XX/XXXX who helped me send the letter. I gave the information for my bank over the phone to Best Buy and Best Buy told me I had to send a letter with screenshots to prove that I made those payments. They refused to contact my bank directly. Best Buy claims they received no letter. Again, They can call my bank themselves if they want and get the wire transfer numbers and dates for when I made my payments, but they do not. this was all included in the letter. They put the burden of proof on me and I submitted the burden of proof to them and they claim the US Postal Service never sent it to them. The pictures prove I sent the letter. It proves I went to XXXX The pictures inside that letter prove I made my payments on time. It also proves Best Buy falsified my my payment history and that they intentionally applied the payment to the wrong month so that they could charge me illegally for high interest. I shouldnt have to be writing this, I used Best Buy auto payments, my bank reflects the payment was paid on time, the pictures show I paid and sent certified mail. Proof  I have done everything I can possibly do to resolve this matter, and I have spent gobs of time trying to do just that and the fact that I am typing this out right now goes to show why no one should ever do business with Best Buy or Citibank. I am flabbergasted that the governments solution for accountability of a company falsely changing their customers payment history, considering they pay taxes to the IRS, is that I write this letter for it to be sent to themwhich I already did. I sent it to their Best Buy credit card XXXX XXXX  address in XXXX XXXX Missouri and what I am writing now is nowhere near as comprehensive. The reason they dont call my Bank themselves is because they know they lied about my payment history. They have nothing to gain from proving that a customer paid the payment. They make their money by claiming their customers dont make their payments on time and create irroneous rules to prevent their customers from getting their money back. None of their rules matter all that should matter is that the customer paid on time and they need to apply the payment to when it was paid. I have never seen a company take a payment and apply it to the wrong month. Never! It doesnt matter what company it is if they claim they didnt receive the payment. All Ive ever had to do is provide proof that I did make the payment and then they add the payment to the correct month because that was the month that had the discrepancy. It is a logical for me to make two payments on the next month and never have the payment I made for the correct month ever be applied to it. They are falsifying my payment history and then stonewalling me when I ask them to stop lying and pay it to the correct month and remove the penalty for high interest for missing that month payment. I never missed XXXX XXXX months payment I paid on time. It was their responsibility to document My payment. They had no problems proving I had made the payment when they were confronted about it. There is no reason for them to apply it to the wrong month except that is how they illegally charge their customers high interest for a missed payment, even though they made the payment on time. When I disputed this, there is no reason the high interest should not have been removed and the payment applied to the correct months unless they are making money off of fraud victims. XXXX informed me today that this illegal fraudulent business practice is so common that they made a rule for it. A rule to intentionally trick and con customers that DO PAY ON TIME out of their money. Best Buy intentionally miss led me by telling me that if I paid my bills on time I would not be hit with high interest. What they did not tell me is that they would falsify my payment history. I did not sign a contract agreeing to them falsifying my payment history. I did not sign a contract agreeing to them denying me any right to redress or to protect myself from their fraud. Five major rights of consumers: safety, information, choice, voice, and redress. Best Buy misled me as a customer. I have done everything right and I still cant get my money back from Best Buy. They withheld information from me. They lied to me. They have given me no way to redress them for my own safety. They have victimized me and probably countless others via false advertising. I paid on time. I have no control over what Best Buy does with my payment after I pay. And I should not be made to be penalized for what they do after I pay them because I do not run Best Buy and I am not responsible for Best Buy. I am the customer and I did my part as the customer. The bank did their part in the US Postal Service did their part. And so far all I can get from Best Buy is we lost it. we didnt receive it. You never did it. We gave you an incredibly small window to address us after we finally told you about it and because of this were gonna keep taking your money. We know you didnt do anything wrong but we operate illegally through fraud and thats how we steal everybodys money. I didnt walk into a casino. I walked into Best Buy. The casino tells you youre gonna lose your money and the casino customer knows the risks. I walked into a department store and I bought some products with a Best Buy debit card from Citibank. I made my payments on time. I did nothing illegal. I did not lie. I made my payments on time. I was told if I made my payments on time I could get a XXXX XXXXnterest or a low interest loan. This is what Best Buy advertised. It is false advertising if customers make the payments they dont accept the payments and still charge you high interest. I made the payment. The bank says I made the payment on time. But somehow Best Buy can lie and write down on mud Best Buy account statement that for some reason they just didnt receive that payment for well over XXXX. Who wants to do business with a company that loses a payment for over XXXX? They did not accept my payment for XXXX XXXX and falsely claimed I didnt make a payment at all. That is not what I agreed to when I signed up for Best Buy business card I did not agree to business fraud. I agreed that if I missed a payment, then they could charge me high interest. I did not agree to be charged high interest for false reasons or false claims that they were a legal practicing business. Do they also falsely claim how much money they make to the IRS? If theyre lying to their customers and theyre lying about what other businesses are doing like the US Postal Service and my bank then theyre probably lying to the IRS because as a tax paying citizen, I know theyre stealing my money.  I know theyre not above changing their accounting books to benefit them while screwing everybody else over. Unlawful business practices: 
 This unlawful business practice may also occur if a party makes a misrepresentation during the formation of the contract that benefits the breaching party.
 Consumer fraud is an unlawful business practice that involves using unfair or deceptive tactics to illegally lure consumers into purchasing a product or service. This type of fraud can include false advertising, pyramid schemes, and/or bait and switch. A bait and switch occurs when a customer is lured into purchasing a product or service that is no longer available and is offered an alternative product or service instead. Financial Fraud is listed among unlawful business practices.

 There are all kinds of unlawful business practices and win a customer like me paid extra money, pays on time, calls, and makes the dispute, and follows every single guideline a company offers, and they still cant receive their money back well it makes you wonder how many unlawful business practices does Best Buy and Citibank have and how are they allowed to be operating because as a loyal customer for well over eight years what they are doing to me right now makes no sense because the company that wants to keep their customers doesnt treat their customers like this unless it was always there intention to learn a customer in on false advertising, misrepresent the contract, falsify financial records of payment from their customers, and raise the interest so high that customers become life long slaves to their companies by forcing their customers into debt by illegal methods. I pay XXXX  a month for products I have already paid for and Im about to sell because they are that old. Im no longer gonna have the products I bought from Best Buy and theyre still going to try to charge me for them unless I give them even more money. Its Debt bondage, also known as debt slavery, bonded labour, or peonage, is the pledge of a person's services as security for the repayment for a debt or other obligation. Where the terms of the repayment are not clearly or reasonably stated, the person who holds the debt has thus some control over the laborer, whose freedom depends on the undefined debt repayment.[1] The services required to repay the debt may be undefined, and the services' duration may be undefined, thus allowing the person supposedly owed the debt to demand services indefinitely.[2] Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation. I was told if I made my payments on time I could pay off my debt. I was not told that they would falsify my payments to where I could never pay off my debt. These are unlawful and unfair business practices when a person like me cant pay them off because they change the rules and my payment history to keep me from ever paying them off. Its illegal. Its fraud. Its mondern day debt bondage. On top of that they have hit my credit report making these false claims negating me the opportunity to have a better credit rating, stopping me from having access to opportunities. I should be afforded for having a good credit rating which I would have if they would stop committing fraud. I needed to buy a better car and I cant afford the car I want because I have Best Buy falsifying my payment history and ruining my credit. They are ruining my life for no reason. Ive done everything right and because I did business with a Best Buy they have ruined my credit, my life opportunities, and quite frankly stated today theres nothing I can do about it because they cant confirm or deny that charging customers who paid on time, insanely high interest, for not paying is FRAUD! I served my country and I am suffering tyranny from a freaking department store in a credit card company!!!!! They wont let me go free unless I give them even more money for the falsified interest they put on my bill. I would have to actually pay the insanely high interest off all at once in order to get out from under them. I didnt do anything wrong and I dont deserve this. Fun fact, they can falsify my payment history again and keep charging me high interest until the day I die because theres no accountability for them. I would have to get a lawyer. Thats even more money. I should not have to spend my hard earned money  I earned from serving my freaking country and putting my life on the line to pay off a god dang appliance from a department store!!!!!! Every hour I spend on this is them stealing another hour of my life. They should not be able to operate in the US. They should lose their business license. This is an attack on liberty and the American dream. Its on unAmerican. Its a antiAmerican. Its organized crime and they should go to jail. No one should ever be made to be a Debt slave for years because the company doesnt want to admit they were already paid off. The fact that they falsify their customers payment history should be enough to close down their businesses. We have modern technology and computers dont lie. They just compute. If the bank said, I paid then it should be reflected in Best Buys bank. And if its not, the only thing I should have to do with the customer is show them I paid, and they wont even let me do that. They wont let me send in the records. They wont admit they received the mail. But, theyll take my money I paid in XXXX and apply it to the XXXXXXXX They change the rules to benefit them and screw over the customer. Theyre trying to keep their business practices in the stone ages by forcing people to mail. It is obvious everything they are doing is to avoid accountability from their customers for illegal business practices. This is America, the land of the free. How in the hell is this crap happening in XXXX?

PS. I have been dealing with this for three years. I have been disputing this for XXXX years. I have a lot of other things going on in my life besides Best Buys in ability to do their own job. If Best Buy or Citibank cannot run their companies or operate their businesses in force their customers to do all the work for them then perhaps they need to close the businesses down. It is exhausting fighting a company for three years to correct a single payment and the following year on the same exact date its discrepancy. They take extra payments. They take my payments every month, but they managed to lose my payment on the month when they know they can get an obscene amount of interest if I dont pay. I feel violated, frustrated, and a whole list of other negative emotions, because of the gaslighting I have received from Best Buy credit card services. You pay they claim you didnt pay. You sending mail they claim you did not send in mail. You want to provide proof they will not let you provide proof. Denial is their favorite word so they can get that plausible deniability. They can claim all day they didnt know. But they do know and the bank knows as does the US Postal Service and I know.  I do not have this problem with any of the other companies that I deal with on a daily basis. I am tired, and I have just spent hours trying to write this in a way to where it would convey how unbelievably ridiculously stupid my situation is with Best Buy credit services. I gave up time. I should be spending with my family and my loved ones. I had to neglect other responsibilities in my life to give my undivided attention to the company, responsible for ruining my life. If there are typing errors it is because it has negatively impacted me in such a way that Im left, speechless, or unable to respond in a comprehensive sentence, because the magnitude of the level of incompetence or greed, it would take to do this is Jaw dropping, and it leaves me unable to find words. This is the kind of behavior I expect from a snotty middle schooler trying to change the rules in a game of monopoly to win. But, this from a well-established company? In America? With brick and mortar buildings all across America, giving off the impression that it is a successful and legitimate business? Using child is tactics like lying to run their business? How were they ever allowed to run a business in the first place? Its depressing thinking about it. How does a company like this exist? Ive been a customer for well over eight years and why have they not been stopped from doing this already?

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 monetary relief