Consumer complaint received 2019-12-05
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: IL
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Opening an account
Sub-issue: Didn't receive terms that were advertised

Complaint:
I applied for a new Citi checking account to receive a bonus valued at {$500.00} after receiving an advertisement. Upon completing the requirements, Citi instead closed my account in error and refused to rectify the situation. 

I hold a Citi ThankYou credit card and received an offer from Citibank for XXXX bonus ThankYou points ( value : {$500.00} when redeemed for travel ) if I opened a new checking account, transferred at least {$15000.00} into the account, made 1 bill payment from the account in each of 2 consecutive months within 60 days of opening the account, and maintained a minimum balance. On XX/XX/XXXX, I applied for, and opened a new Citi checking account. I fulfilled all of the requirements ( proof of address, proof of ID, W-9 form, and signature card ) submitted by XX/XX/XXXX, linking my ThankYou rewards  account to the new checking account and receiving an email confirming my enrollment ( see attached ). Mindful of the requirements to fulfill the bonus offer, from the new checking account I made 2 bill payments in XXXX and scheduled another payment on XX/XX/XXXX. 

However, I attempted to log into my account on XX/XX/XXXX only to discover that it was blocked. Upon calling Citi customer service, I spoke with a supervisor who told me that my account was locked because they had not received a photo ID and proof of address. I had sent this information to Citi via XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX. ( Attached I am including the email I received from Citi on XX/XX/XXXX confirming Citi 's receipt of these documents, as well as the submission I made with XXXX. ) Citi had in fact never notified me it was needed until I was unable to get the account up and running and made several contacts to customer service in XXXX to figure out why - finally someone told me that this information was missing, sent me a link to submit the photos/bills via XXXX and with another call later in XXXX or early XXXX ( I forget exact date ) confirmed that it was received and released my account to make bill payments. Indeed, the supervisor on XX/XX/XXXX told me that he saw that they did in fact receive this information and he would unlock my account and send me a new debit card in 5-7 business days. He even confirmed that the bill payment I had set up on XX/XX/XXXX had gone through ( being the second consecutive month of bill payment and also the 60th day after the account opening, this was needed to fulfill a requirement for the bonus offer. ) All was well, I thought, until today ( XX/XX/XXXX ) when I received an email from Citi to check my secure messages. Upon logging into my account I discovered that the checking account was closed and the balance of nearly {$15000.00} was now XXXX. I called customer service and spoke to a supervisor, who told me that my ID/proof of address was never received and my account was closed and the funds sent to me in a check via postal mail ( not yet received ). She further told me that there were no notes on my account from anyone else I had spoken to, and that I must have been given incorrect information by the supervisor the previous day. When I asked how we could rectify the situation, she told me that there was nothing they could do to honor the XXXX point ( {$500.00} ) reward offer because my account was already closed. To add insult to injury, she told me that I was disqualified from applying for a new rewards offer for 180 days. I emphasized that I followed everything and this was clearly an error on Citi 's part, but she repeated that there was nothing she could do about it. Of course, conveniently for Citi that means that they will not give me the XXXX  points ( {$500.00} ). 

I did receive an email from Citi on XX/XX/XXXX telling me that the documents were missing and that I needed to submit them " by XX/XX/XXXX '' ( Attached below. ) Given that the deadline was nearly a month in the past, that I already had confirmation that the documents were received, and that I had spoken to customer service agents telling me the same, I believed this email to be nothing more than a glitch and I ignored it. Furthermore, the fact that the checking account was fully up and running and was able to link to my ThankYou points account, I had no reason to believe that Citi was actually missing anything.

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