Consumer complaint received 2024-01-22
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: CA
Product: Credit 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:
I am filing this complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in response to the update I received from Citi about the status of my dispute. Citi concluded they were unable to assist me because of the amount of time that has passed since the date of the charge. They also suggested in their response that if I wanted to pursue the matter ; to seek alternate means to obtain the credit for my account. This is why I am filing this complaint with the CFPB. 
I started this dispute early summer of XXXX. The case ID : XXXX Documents supporting my dispute were uploaded and should be found under this case ID. Since the amount of time is the issue with Citi, I will summarize the timeline of this transaction from the date of the charge until now. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I made a purchase of a vehicle from the merchant, XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. XXXX XXXX was a licensed auto broker obtaining vehicles from other dealers for their clients. I used this merchant to find the vehicle I wanted and to do all the paperwork. The purchase price of the vehicle was {$58000.00}. I used three separate credit cards plus some cash to complete this transaction. {$17000.00} was charged to my XXXX XXXX, {$12000.00} was charged to my Citi Costco Visa Card and {$26000.00} was charged to my Citi Driver 's Edge Mastercard. The transaction appeared to be fine. XXXX  months later on XX/XX/XXXX the XXXX XXXX Sheriff showed up at my house to recover the vehicle I thought I had purchased from XXXX XXXX. They explained to me that the vehicle I purchased from XXXX XXXX was reported stolen by the dealer XXXX XXXX used to obtain the vehicle. They also explained to me that under California law that the vehicle was never mine and had to be returned to the original title holder. It then took a few weeks to figure out what my options were and sometime in late XXXX or early XXXX I started the process of disputing the credit card transactions as fraud. So for each of the three credit cards used, I found out the process of doing this and then disputed the transactions as a fraudulent transaction. I explained the situation and uploaded documents supporting my dispute. Each credit card received my documents and started their investigation. Unfortunately for me I disputed this charge as a fraudulent charge and each credit card came back and rejected my claim as fraud stating this was not fraud since I willingly made this transaction. I was told I could dispute this transaction as a billing dispute since I did not receive the merchandise as promised. So I started the process all over again, this time as a billing dispute. So now it's late summer XXXX and close to XXXX year since the original transaction. I was on the phone numerous times with associates from the dispute departments on how best to proceed and if the information that I submitted as a fraud dispute could be used or transferred to the billing dispute dept.. One associate from Citi assured me that all the documents I submitted to the fraud dept would be transferred to the billing dispute dept.. This conversation referred to the Citi Driver 's Edge Card. At about that time I was receiving updates from the Citi Costco Card about their investigation. Finally on XX/XX/XXXX I received a letter from Citi Costco Card that the dispute has been resolved in my favor and the {$12000.00} credit would now be permanent. The Citi Costco Card dispute ID was : XXXX. 
I am still waiting for a response from the Citi Driver 's Edge Card. After waiting several months for a response I call them and was informed that the case was never transferred over from the fraud dept to the billing dept as promised. The Citi associate suggested I make hard copies of documents and statements and mail them directly to the Citi billing dispute dept. It is now XX/XX/XXXX and I make the copies and mail them off. Then in early XX/XX/XXXX I receive a letter from Citi stating too much time has passed from the date of the transaction for Citi to assist me and therefore the investigation is closed. 
I know this is a lot of money and a lot of time has passed. I'm hoping you will see and understand that the timeline in question was out of my control. It was XXXX months before I was informed the merchandise promised by the merchant ended up as being stolen by the merchant. It took several weeks to start the dispute process and much time was lost due to the dispute originally filed as a fraud dispute and not a billing dispute.

I hope this explains the timeline of this dispute and you will take that into consideration. I also hope you would look at the results of the Citi Costco Card investigation and take that into consideration. It was the exact same transaction.

Thank you for your time.

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