Consumer complaint received 2018-09-24
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: NM
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: Store credit card
Issue: Fees or interest
Sub-issue: Problem with fees

Complaint:
I am writing to file a formal complaint over unfair billing and related practices by XXXX/Citi regarding a XXXX credit card account that I had. In this complaint I will often refer to XXXX/Citi as a single unit, because Citibank apparently administers the XXXX credit cards and it is generally difficult for me to distinguish what actions are being taken specifically by which of these two entities. I will try to summarize the issues as follows, all relating to in-store purchases at the same store location in XXXX NM, involving only a mens belt and a few pair of Levis jeans. 
Going back to XXXX when I first got the card, I received only four statements from XXXX, two of which I had to request. In the same time frame I received at least eight other types of mailings from XXXX/Citi   up to as recently as XX/XX/XXXX ( notices about account changes, personal information use, promotional materials, etc. ). I offer this detail as evidence that XXXX/Citi has had a correct address with which to reach me during this entire time frame, including an interval between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX when I had moved, but mail forwarding was still in effect, during which I received some of these mailings and one of the statements. 
The first statement, closing date of XX/XX/XXXX, was for {$68.00} for a pair of jeans. This was paid with a personal check by mail, but no statement came after that for over a year, leading me to believe that my balance was zero, and that, as with some other businesses, I would only receive statements moving forward if a balance or credit existed. In fact, I was later told that this was precisely XXXX stated policy. 
In the summer of XXXX, I returned this pair of jeans as defective, along with a second pair of defective jeans that I had purchased for {$53.00} using a different credit card a XXXX. The next time I made a purchase with the XXXX card was XX/XX/XXXX, for a mens belt, for {$31.00}. At that time I was waiting for resolution of the refund of the returned items, one of which was purchased on the same XXXX card. Therefore, this was during an interval when I expected a refund from XXXX for more than {$31.00}, since one of the two refunded items was bought with the XXXX card for more than that amount. In other words, XXXX should have actually owed me money at that time, but for some reason, and coincidentally, both refunds went to my other, non-XXXX XXXX account on the same day for a total of {$78.00}. This left me with a balance on my XXXX account rather than a credit. And furthermore, I received no statement for the next month. 
Eventually, in XX/XX/XXXX, I began receiving multiple calls demanding payment for this balance, for which I had received no statement, and threatening late fees. Because I think it unwise to make payments over the phone when I receive no billing document of any kind, paper or electronic, I requested ( more than once ) that a statement be sent and thereupon I would pay the balance. I should also mention that an internet search indicated that scams using false demands for payment by persons pretending to represent XXXX were occurring, and this also factored into my demand for proper documentation. 
After weeks, I finally received a statement ( two copies ), with closing date XX/XX/XXXX, with the charge of {$31.00}, which again I paid with a personal check by mail. I also managed to get any late charges dismissed at the time as well, by phone. Nonetheless, calls for payment continued, up to three a day, into XXXX, after my payment had already been mailed. Exasperated, at some point I requested that calls over this matter stop, but evidently XXXX/Citi took this request to mean that they were prohibited from contacting me by phone for ANY reason. 
Meanwhile, I received no statements for XXXX or XXXX of XXXX. With no further calls and no statements, I thought that everything was resolved. However, unbeknownst to me because these statements never came, I would later learn that a {$2.00} fee for carried balance was not removed. I might add that XXXX/Citi at one point in early/mid XX/XX/XXXX told me that they have no record that statements were returned by the postal service during this period ( although they later told me the opposite, on XX/XX/XXXX ), and furthermore, XXXX Citi already had my new address in their systems by this time. There was yet another irregularity during this time frame that I only learned about in XX/XX/XXXX, and which I will explain below. 
On XX/XX/XXXX, suckered by the promise of a discount, I purchased Levis jeans again using the XXXX card, for {$95.00} including tax. I then received a statement with a closing date of XX/XX/XXXX for {$99.00}. This apparently included no discount, but did include a {$2.00} late fee ( for what, when I had received no statement for the past two months? ) and another {$2.00} past due amount ( which I now assume must have been the {$2.00} carried balance charge mentioned in the last paragraph ). Nonetheless, I sent a personal check for the full {$99.00} by mail, without disputing these additional charges, and went forward again thinking that everything was resolved. However, I was wrong again. 
Over the next several months, and up until XX/XX/XXXX, I received no further statements for this account. And until recently, no phone calls either. Yet I recently received two other pieces of mail, both from XXXX. One, dated XX/XX/XXXX, was a settlement offer for an outstanding balance of {$220.00}, sent in an envelope with no external markings to identify its sender, and which arrived sometime in XX/XX/XXXX, seven months after the last statement I had received. The other, dated XX/XX/XXXX, in a similarly unmarked envelope, was in the form of a letter beginning This letter is a notification of your recent request for us to stop all calls with you ( italics in the original ). Apparently it took 8-9 months for Citi to get around to this notification. Both of these mailings were sent to the same address where statements were NOT being sent. 
After opening these mailings I began to call various XXXX/Citi customer service numbers to try and find out what was going on. I also asked that statements be sent and that I be called back by a supervisor ( which resulted in a new flurry of collections-related calls, again up to three a day ). I can provide the names and ID numbers that I talked to if needed but I would rather summarize what I was told here. 
In the first few calls I was told, among other things, that : - No statements were returned by the Postal Service so it must be their fault that I didnt get the statements. This, during the same time frame that other types of mailings from XXXX/Citi were being successfully delivered to the same address!

- Anyway, statements are just a courtesy on the part of XXXX/Citi and it is up to the cardholder to track their balance, although it is supposedly also true that XXXX/Citi only sends statements when the account has a credit or balance. This, when inexplicable charges are being levied by XXXX/Citi ( e.g. unexplained late fees and outstanding balance fees ), and when virtually no one else that does business will make a payment until they are properly invoiced, if for nothing else, proper record-keeping. And in the absence of any communication whatsoever about these charges when XXXX/Citi just continued to pile on additional late and interest fees?

- That my payment of {$99.00}, including the mysterious charges, was not credited by XXXX/Citi until XX/XX/XXXX, making it late, although it took many months before I was advised that this had occurred with the result of additional charges by XXXX/Citi. 
- That my account was closed for being delinquent. As far as I can tell, this was only communicated to me because I called to find out what was going on again no notification by XXXX/Citi. 
Once I was able to speak to a supervisor in Billing Disputes I learned that the XX/XX/XXXX statement HAD BEEN RETURNED by the postal service, but that it had been sent by XXXX/Citi to an INCOMPLETE address, whereupon XXXX/Citi supposedly put in their system that statements should not be mailed to me thereafter! So then, I got no phone calls and no statements, but some months later, I got these other mailings to the proper, full address, including a settlement offer of charges of more than {$200.00} on a closed account, that evidently derived from late and interest fees from XXXX, that may have been worthy of dispute even then, had I known about them ( I eventually learned that the XXXX statement was for {$33.00}, consisting of {$2.00} carried balance, {$2.00} interest, and a {$29.00} late fee ). 
I should also mention that during the course of these various calls, I managed to get two {$38.00} late fees removed, so that the balance was reduced to {$190.00}. 
Then, on XX/XX/XXXX I got a statement due XX/XX/XXXX, for {$260.00}, sent to the correct address. The breakdown of charges is given on page 3. Here, one line is labelled REGULAR and has a breakdown into {$220.00} Previous Balance, {$38.00} Purchases, Cash Adv, Fees & Other Debits, {$5.00} Interest Charged, and {$260.00} New Balance, while a second line, labelled REGULAR ON OR BEFORE XX/XX/XXXX lists a Previous Balance of exactly {$0.00}, bringing the grand total to {$290.00}. I called Customer Service the same day to get an explanation of the {$0.00} figure from XX/XX/XXXX ( when by the way, the balance according to what I was previously told had been {$31.00}, for the belt, which I had purchased four days earlier, when coincidentally a refund was made to a different account than the XXXX card that was used to purchase the returned item, originally purchased for {$68.00}, over twice the supposed balance amount ). 
During this call it was confirmed that my current balance was still {$190.00}, and the customer service representative promised to send to me copies of all the individual statements for the past year, including those that I never received, but he was unable to explain the {$0.00} balance figure. I have still not received these statements as of XX/XX/XXXX. 
None of my attempts to resolve these issues by phone have resulted in satisfaction, and I was told by different representatives of XXXX/Citi that my only recourse was to write to the President of XXXX. Furthermore I was told that if I did not pay the full balance that they claimed by XX/XX/XXXX, that XXXX/Citi would levy a new round of late fees and other charges and report their actions to credit agencies, even though I had told them that I was disputing the charges. Therefore, on XX/XX/XXXX I sent a formal letter of complaint to the President of XXXX by certified mail ( I received a notice of receipt eventually on XX/XX/XXXX, dated XX/XX/XXXX ). I have gotten no response as of XX/XX/XXXX. I should mention that I sent copies of this letter to the Consumer Protection Division of the New Mexico Attorney Generals office and to the XXXX office of the 1st US Congressional District. The office of the 1st CD assigned a case worker to my complaint on XX/XX/XXXX, who advised me to file this complaint with the CFPB. 
On XX/XX/XXXX, I received another copy of the XX/XX/XXXX {$260.00} statement, and also learned that my XXXX account had been blocked due to credit deterioration, so the situation was having negative effects on my credit score and other financial repercussions for me. 
On XX/XX/XXXX I took the following actions to attempt to address this worsening situation. First, I sent an UNBLOCK request to the bank holding my XXXX account, to which I attached a copy of the letter I had sent to the President of XXXX, with the result that my account was unblocked the next morning. Second, I requested a Credit Report from XXXX, which I have not yet received. Third, I filed a formal complaint online with the Consumer Protection Division of the New Mexico Attorney Generals office. I was contacted the next day by a representative of the NM AGs XXXX office, who promised to take up the situation by contacting XXXX/Citi. 
The final developments to date occurred on the next day, XX/XX/XXXX. The previous day I found that any calls I attempted to any customer service or billing dispute number for XXXX were redirected to a XXXX call center, so I attempted to find out what the current situation was through XXXX. A XXXX representative reiterated the demand that I pay the full balance ( {$190.00} ) that they claimed I owed by XX/XX/XXXX or there would be a new round of late fees and other charges, even though I had told them that I was disputing the charges, and even though they had yet to send me any of the missing statements or any other proper accounting of any of these charges in detail. I was also told at this time that XXXX/Citi   would not reduce the balance further because I had used up too many late fee waivers in XXXX ( when I was trying to get the misallocated refund situation resolved ). She also contradicted what I had been told previously about whether earlier statements had been returned by the postal service, claiming that statements during XXXX had been returned also, and argued that I was responsible for this. When I protested that other mailings were being sent to the correct address during the same time frame, she contended that these were sent by other departments that had other ways of getting my address, so therefore it wasnt their problem! Anyway I went ahead and paid the {$190.00} on this day, in hopes of avoiding further damage to my credit, whereupon she told me that I would still be charged an additional {$2.00} fee in XXXX, for the carried balance. When I then asked how there could be a carried balance when I was paying in full, she gave an unintelligible word salad by way of explanation. 
So, XXXX/Citi has levied charges and fees that they could not clearly explain or explain at all, and for which no statements were received by me. In some cases XXXX/Citi either could not explain coherently or consistently why statements were not received ( before XX/XX/XXXX ) or in other cases the explanation is a failure by XXXX/Citi to send statements ( and apparently only statements ) to a complete address ( after XX/XX/XXXX ). In the meantime, while XXXX/Citi is sending other types of mailings to the correct address, XXXX/Citi  is piling on various fees and charges and has closed my account as delinquent ( with negative effects on my credit rating ), without written communication to me about any of this for months on end, and furthermore only informs me in writing after many months that XXXX hasnt even been calling me by phone. Finally, I mention again the misallocation of a refund to a non-XXXX account for a purchase made on a XXXX account, which resulted in a balance when I should have had a credit, way back at the beginning of the extra-fees saga. Even if one argues that I was responsible for a late payment and other fees from the XX/XX/XXXX bill, the fact is that errors on XXXX part ( the incomplete address error and subsequent decision to suspend further mailing of statements ) and lack of any other relevant communication left me no opportunity to be aware of or to address that issue. 
And by the way, a brief internet search will reveal many dozens of complaints against XXXX that are similar or nearly identical to mine ( e.g., see www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/rr ) Therefore, when considering also the earlier irregularities on XXXX/Citis part ( refund error, lack of statements, suspension of phone contacts, lack of removal of the earlier {$2.00} fee, and the mysterious {$0.00} ), the damage to my credit history, the hassle and lost time, and the fact that such problems are apparently widespread with Macys credit card customers, I think that I should owe no current balance to XXXX or Citi ( the pending {$2.00} fee ), that XXXX/Citi should refund me the {$190.00} that I paid under duress   on XX/XX/XXXX while my dispute was ongoing, and furthermore that any damage to my credit rating as a result of this fiasco should be corrected by them immediately and without reservation. I would much rather enjoy spending my spare time with my wife and 10-year-old son than spend it contending with XXXX about their poor record-keeping, odd accounting, spotty communications, and damaging credit practices regarding my good-faith efforts to make simple retail purchases. 
I would like to reiterate in closing that nether XXXX XXXX nor Citi has yet provided me with a complete or even reasonable accounting, paper or electronic, of the charges that they claim that I owe, despite my repeated requests.

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