Consumer complaint received 2023-11-28
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: NY
Product: Credit card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX, I reserved a room in XXXX in the XXXX XXXX XXXX for the night of XX/XX/XXXX for XXXX through XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  On the XXXX of XXXX, I noticed a charge for {$240.00} on my Citicard account, so I assumed they had accidentally overcharged me as the exchange rate for XXXX was only {$140.00} ; so I entered a dispute for {$97.00}. 
I spent several hours and finally got through to XXXX  to notify them of the mistake. 
On XX/XX/XXXX, another charge from XXXX XXXX XXXX  was placed against my card -- for the XXXX. At this point I realized that the entire charge for {$240.00} was fraudulent. I called Citibank to notify them to cancel the whole charge. The representative at Citibank wanted to cancel my card, but I asked them not to as I was in XXXX, where I needed to use the credit card, until the end of XXXX and would have no way to get a card mailed to my residence in NY. 
XXXX XXXX XXXX sends emails with reservation details and reminders of upcoming checkins and payments due. I never received any notification for a {$240.00} reservation. They also have a customer dashboard that indicates all of the reservations made and cancelled. I explained these policies to Citibank and sent a photo of my dashboard that showed my entire history from XXXX to XXXX with XXXX  and there was no reservation made in XXXX in an amount similar to {$240.00}. ( There is a charge from XXXX for a reservation in XXXX in XXXX that has no relevance to the XXXX fraudulent charge. ) There were XXXX reservations, XXXX cancelled, and only XXXX confirmed, which was the XXXX for XXXX XXXX XXXX I called XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX and sent photos of my dashboard indicating no reservation for {$240.00} to the agent, who assured me that the charge would be lifted. 
For the past several months, I have had repeated conversations with agents at Citibank, as it was obvious XXXX was operating in full knowledge of their fraud. I also gathered from other sources that this practice of false billing is common practice with this XXXX based company. 
Despite their inability to uncover any evidence of my having made a reservation with XXXX for {$240.00}, and my submission of evidence to the contrary, Citibank judged the dispute settled in favor of the merchant, so Citi and the merchant get to profit from this fraud. 
I have been so negatively impacted by the criminal actions of XXXX  that I requested that Citibank deny payment to XXXX for the XXXX charge as well ; instead, they charged for both the hotel I used ( XXXX ) and a hotel I never heard of ( {$240.00} ). 
I have been deleteriously impacted for six months by the injustice and waste of time spent pursuing a fair and common sense resolution to this dispute.

I am attaching some of the evidence that I submitted to Citibank : 1. photo of my letter to XXXX  with a screenshot of the errant charge from my citicard statement XXXX photo of the XXXX dashboard that shows my entire transaction history going back to XXXX -- no XXXX reservation for {$240.00} in XXXX XXXX the text from an email sent to Citibank, partial excerpt : XXXX charged me a total of {$380.00}, when I only booked services totaling {$140.00}. Despite registering my dispute with Citicard to include the entire fraud, and notifying the merchant repeatedly ; Citi continues to plague me with these charges in support of the scam. 

How do I prove a negative... to this day, my account at XXXX shows NO reservation that matches the fraudulent charge : Attached is a photograph of my dashboard with XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX ]. The dashboard includes my entire history -- reservations made and cancelled -- with XXXX. Please notice that there is no reservation near the date of XXXX XXXX, nor in the amount of {$240.00}. 
There is one uncancelled charge of {$140.00} for XXXX on the XXXX of XXXX, and XXXX cancelled reservations. The next legitimate charge is from XXXX for a reservation in XXXX for {$240.00}, which was paid for in XXXX. 
Please return to me all of my funds that you have rewarded to these XXXX thieves. 
Thank you for your time and attention.

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