Consumer complaint received 2019-05-21
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: VA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems
Sub-issue: Other problem

Complaint:
On the XXXX XXXX  18 I received a follow up email from a XXXX XXXX an employee of a company called XXXX who supposedly were looking to hire project managers. Their candidate selection/hiring process involved successful completion of training and two small projects over a 4 week period. I had successfully completed ten training assignments and was asked to complete the first project. To fund the project XXXX placed $ XXXX in a XXXX XXXX account which I was given permission to access and pay monies into my Citicard account XXXX. I paid {$3200.00} into my XXXX, ( to initially {$0.00} my account ) and then {$6500.00} to repay me for expenses incurred for the first project on the XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX respectively. The total {$9700.00}, was the amount I had paid to purchase goods as part of this first project. I was not going to send these goods to XXXX until my XXXX account indicated that the funds were safe in my account, both amounts were initially shown as deposited in my XXXX account but had PENDING written next to each of them on your website. After approximately 3 business days the PENDING no longer showed against either amount and I assumed the funds were safe with me and proceeded to ship the purchased goods to XXXX providing them with tracking information. On the XXXX XXXX I received an email from you/Citi stating Hi, XXXX. The recent payment of {$3200.00} that was scheduled for XXXX XXXX  2018 could not be processed. This could have occurred for various reasons. XXXX apparently informed their XXXX XXXX  account that the {$3200.00} payment I had made from it were unauthorized, needless to say I have an email from XXXX authorizing such ( which I now know is worthless ). I called Citi that day and spoke to someone who informed me the second payment of {$6500.00} had NOT also been declared unauthorized. At no time did your representative provide me with evidence of our conversation but said she was taking notes. I spoke with another Citi representative XXXX ( team XXXX XXXX ) on the XXXX XXXX who informed me that the {$6500.00} payment was still in my account and had not be unauthorized/returned to XXXX and could not be from this date forward. However, on the XXXX XXXX I received the following email from yourselves Hi, XXXX. A recent payment of {$6500.00} on your Costco Anywhere Business Visa account was returned unpaid by XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX I called your representatives that day ( XXXX XXXX ) and was finally ( believe me this was not easy ) put through to an account manager Ms XXXX XXXX who proceeded to inform me that the {$6500.00} payment had also been returned / unauthorized at the same date the {$3200.00} payment had been! Ms XXXX stated that because I did not have ownership of the XXXX account I should not have used it, even though I had been given authority in writing by its owners to use it. Ms XXXX then proceeded to defend the way she and her colleagues had interacted with me and that the processes they relied upon to interact with me the customer were sound. 
I have reported this situation to XXXX and the FBI and received no acknowledgement/response from either of them to date. In discussing these events with any Citi staff I was told you/Citi do not have a fraud department and that you/Citi have all the notes pertaining to your interaction with me. 
Citis process for dealing with customers. 
This whole experience has been unpleasant for me. I would have hoped that my credit card company would have a ) been more protective of me b ) had much better customer support/facing processes. Specifically : Firstly, if my account had continued to show PENDING until Citi had validated it had received all monies paid into it AND that they could not be cancelled/deemed unauthorized/returned, I would not have shipped the purchased goods to the scammers and accordingly recovered my costs. Displaying PENDING against payments into my account and then removing it ( prior to you/Citi having the funds ) was VERY misleading. 
Secondly, each interaction with Citi staff is not customer centric, your staff take notes and do not share them with their customers so we have no way of knowing what has been recorded or not recorded, regarding our interaction. 
Thirdly, your processes/systems can not be relied upon due to the fact XXXX confirmed to me on the XXXX XXXX that the second payment for {$6500.00} was still in my account and it could not now be reversed! In talking with Ms XXXX on the XXXX XXXX, she said these funds had been returned at the same time the first payment was! 
Forthly, at no point was I put in touch with a specialized fraud department.

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