Consumer complaint received 2024-01-21
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: CA
Product: Credit card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Fees or interest
Sub-issue: Problem with fees

Complaint:
Citi Cards lowered the credit limit many times since I got the Citi Diamond Preferred Credit Card. There was no valid reason because I had never missed a payment. One of the excuses they wrote on the notice mentioning that they lowered the limit, was that I had spent a high debt-to ratio amount. This is false because they were lowering the limit to get it closer to the amount I had spent, then falsely accusing me of spending too close to the limit. These two injustices on the part of Citi Cards, lowering the limit, then reporting me for spending too close to the limit caused me a lot of financial losses as I was starting my XXXX XXXX XXXX  self-publishing business and was depending on my promised available credit to pay for the start-up costs of establishing the business. So, upon finding out that the amount on which I was depending had disappeared, I started applying to borrow from other sources. My applications for a XXXX loan were all declined because Citi Cards ' false reports had brought down my credit score from Excellent to poor. And the only credit cards who allowed me to borrow more were at an interest rate of over 35 %. Citi Cards caused my credit score to go from XXXX ( the highest possible ) to XXXX in the Poor category. Plus, I had budgeted for a schedule of payments that I could afford, but when Citibank brought down the credit limit to less than what I had already borrowed, they not only lied to the credit bureaus that I spend above the credit limit, but they added the difference they went below my borrowed amount ( in this example {$70.00}, Exhibit Three ) to my monthly payment thus more than doubling the monthly payment ( see Exhibit Three again ) and including the total in the MINIMUM DUE to make it mandatory to pay it right then. This is clearly and obviously a case of stealing money by forcing the borrower to pay for a reason that they caused themselves. And the false report that I spend above my allowed limit lowered my credit score even further, caused more of my credit applications to be declined, AND ADDED TO THIS, the more one applies for credit, the lower the score goes down. THE TRUTH IS THAT I HAVE NEVER SPENT ONE CENT ABOVE THE AVAILABLE CREDIT when I make a purchase. I was always extra careful that my credit score wouldn't go down from XXXX to XXXX, but NOW, THROUGH NO FAULT OF MINE, the score crashed to the lowest possible level. I had to find other sources from which to borrow because I had to honor the business commitments which I had ordered. Right now, I have stopped making the minimum payments due for THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE. I incurred huge losses from not being able to publicize my books at seasons when many XXXX XXXX XXXX are usually bought as gifts, because of having to keep paying the extra amount to Citi Cards. Plus, that caused me to miss bringing in all the profit I could have made during the holiday season. I developed XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. that is why my family thought I had XXXX. But the skilled XXXX succeeded in preventing a second brain XXXX, which would have caused my immediate XXXX. Citi Cards caused much more financial losses than the extra amounts they kept adding to the minimum due in addition to their false reports accusing me of actions for which they were responsible themselves. Just by lowering multiple times the limit on which I was depending to cover the business startup costs, threw my whole planned budget off. it was a chain reaction that step by step brought down my credit score from the top level to the lowest and led to losing all the funds that I would have saved by now to pay off my credit card debts and pay for all the cost of setting up the business. Not to mention the aggravation to my medical condition by causing the development of new XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

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