Consumer complaint received 2021-10-24
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: FL
Product: Credit card or prepaid 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 XXXX XXXX I was notified with Citibank decision on my dispute for {$130.00} to be against my claim and rebilled my account. Im filing this complaint with CFBP because the evidences I had included and submitted to Citibank investigating the matter should had cited that I should not be billed for the transaction based on the proofs included. 

Citibank forwarded to me Action Required form for feedback included two options only : Deny the transaction or recognize the transaction. None of them is related to my dispute at all. The first time I called Citibank to report my dispute I said that the basis of my dispute is what I received in mail dis not match what I placed an order. 
On XX/XX/XXXX, I ordered ( 6 ) six used ignition coils for my XXXX XXXX  XXXX. See Page number 5 for the order description and SMS text message pages 7-10. Please note the following items listed on the pre-authorization form : o year and model of the car XXXX XXXX XXXX  o Number of Ignition Coils ( 6 ) six o Method of shipping XXXX/XXXX  I felt very concerned with the way the merchant requested my credit card information on such a very insecure form, as can be seen on the attached form. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, nine ( 9 ) days later, I received a package from the merchant ( or his associate retailer ) via regular USPS when I opened, I found : o One coil belongs to XXXX XXXX, not XXXX, from the VIN listed o only ( 1 ) one coil, not ( 6 ) six as agreed upon. 
o Shipped via ground USPS not XXXX/XXXX  o Further, the price of one coil was too low compared to what I was charged for six, reflecting a doubt on why I was charged that much. Please see pages 17-20 for copy of the invoice attached to the part I received. 

I tried to call the Merchant at the phone number listed in the pre-authorization, page 5, form and got no answer. I tried to send them an email to the email address listed on the pre-authorization form, which is XXXX. Unfortunately, I received a message that the address is not found. Please see page 21.

At that moment I realized that I may be a victim of a scam. Therefore, I contacted Citibank to report my dispute with the Merchant on the basis that I ordered used car parts for {$130.00} and what I received was one piece out of 6 pieces agreed upon. 

In response to my dispute, the merchant now contacted me via SMS and email to inform me that they will send the remaining five ( 5 ) coils, pages 12-16. The merchant email address used was : XXXX, please see page 22, as the merchant admitted sending out the wrong order. Additionally, using a generic email address with business related transactions casted doubts about the legitimacy of the business operation. Thus, I declared to the merchant that I already lost confidence with his business for the following reasons : o No phone number ( s ) is answering with so many different phone numbers listed. 
o If the phone answers I would get some other auto part related business, not the same business name. 
o The email address listed on the Merchant form was not valid email, and the merchant is using generic email address. No legitimate email address. 

All circumstances related made me very concerned that Im dealing with a network of scammers here. Right there I contacted Citibank again to stop the current Credit Card and request a replacement to avoid any further altercation with this merchant since all my billing information is accessible to the merchant with this insecure form. I requested the merchant not to send any other goods or parts and no further communication with the merchant of his associates needed, since the final call on the matter would be to my Citibank credit card. 

Reviewing the merchant response to my dispute, as it was extracted from Citibank notice I received today, it stated : she called us and told us she ordered set 6 ignition coil part but we informed her we received the order for 1 you signed the order form but she is not ready to listen again we process the set of ignition coil part shipped out on XXXX of XX/XX/XXXX End of quote. 

From the merchant response the following could be concluded : There was no she, it was me, a man, so I have no clue who wrote this, and definitely I never spoke to him/her and who he/she wrote this never spoke with me. I believe Citibank knows that Im a man. Thus, the credibility of him/her asserting what had happened is untrustworthy.

The merchant referred to the pre-authorization form to the number of coils ordered. The merchant should have included the pre-authorization form in his response. In fact, Citibank should have asked for it for fair assessment of the dispute. At any rate, a copy of the pre-authorization form is included in my documents here. It clearly stated : ( 6 ) Coils, see page 5.

Further, the merchants said that I ordered ( 1 ) coil, if this is true would I be billed {$130.00} for one used coil while new ones are going for around {$25.00}, and the invoice included with the part delivered clearly shows {$9.00} for the price of one coil, see page 19. Again, refer to the merchant email for apologizing for not sending the correct number of coils ordered, page 22. Thus, what the merchant stated in his response regarding the number of coils ordered is just a pure lie. 
The merchant instead of admitting he did wrong in his order, he claimed I ordered it wrong and then for the same amount of money the merchant sent me another five coils for free, according to his line of story. 
As per my email to the merchant on XX/XX/XXXX, see page 22, I asked them to cancel sending the missing five coils as I already lost confidence in their professional business. The merchant admitted in his response statement that the order was shipped out on XX/XX/XXXX, that is three days after they were told to cancel. 

Now, I spent most of my day compiling this letter backed with evidence as requested when I called Citibank today. The time and aggravation wasted could be avoided if my dispute was handled properly by evaluating the merchant statement, which contained plenty of evidence that the transaction was not professionally fulfilled. I learned today that the dispute was recorded as Fraudulent while actually what I received is not what I was billed for. I have no expression is mind to describe this action, as the closest term comes to my mind is Scam, considering all the circumstances listed within. 

Further, as a Citibank credit card holder I did unknown and uncounted numbers of transactions with the card and with other credit cards as well, and it is very seldom that I report a dispute. 

Apparently, holding and dealing with Citibank credit card is not any more a privilege I would be proud of, rather, it became a nightmare to me as there is another incident because of which my credit score plunged down 78 points at once due to arbitrary Citibank Automation system, please see attached page number 25-27. Im still struggling with Citibank and the Credit Agency to rectify and reverse such indecent. 

Please reply to this email with acknowledgement that you received this correspondence. 

Regards, 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 monetary relief