Consumer complaint received 2023-08-01
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: DC
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:
Hello, on XX/XX/XXXX, I submitted four disputes ( all from the same transaction and vendor ) to Citi Credit Cards ( " Citi '' ) because the service provided by the vendor was not performed as agreed. In short, on XX/XX/XXXX, I hired XXXX XXXX XXXX ( " XXXX '' ) to replace a standing bathroom shower along with some other plumbing work, and within a month of job completion, the newly installed shower began to fall apart. Multiple attempts to contact XXXX for a resolution were made from XXXX XX/XX/XXXX, without success. As such, a dispute was opened with Citi on XX/XX/XXXX. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I received Citi 's instructions to provide additional details regarding the dispute. See attachment named " Citi Instructions signed ''. I provided Citi with the following on XX/XX/XXXX via email. Note that all communication/documents are attached here as well with the name of each documents in parenthesis below : 1- Signed Billing Dispute letter ( Citi Instructions signed ) 2- Letter explaining the specific details for the transaction and claim ( Dispute Letter ) 3-Original merchant invoice/disputed transaction ( XXXX XXXX Invoice Dispute ) 4- Communication attempts made to resolve the issue ( XX/XX/XXXX Text ) 5- Estimate/Invoice from new vendor corroborating that the work performed was poorly done and needs to be corrected ( XXXX XXXX  Estimate ) 6- Pictures ( in pdf ) showing the poor quality of the work performed ( Pictures ) XX/XX/XXXX Citi emailed me the following communication : I am a Billing Dispute representative at CITI. We are investigating your disputed charges you opened on XXXX with XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX NJ : that posted to your XXXX account ending XXXX in the amounts of {$370.00}, {$400.00}, {$2200.00} and {$2400.00}. To investigate further we need additional information and documentation. Please provide a timeline of events, including the first and last dates that the merchant was on your property for the installation, and the dates that you contacted the merchant for your request for credit. Because it appears that you are disputing the work that the merchant completed, you must provide documentation to support that it was not completed correctly. This may include obtaining a second merchants opinion. The second opinion must be a direct comparison to the sales contract provided by the merchant and the work completed. It must explain line-by-line what the first merchant did not finish, or complete correctly. Have a business card attached to your second merchants opinion. Lastly, please indicate the date that you advised the merchant to come pick up any materials that you received, and the merchants response to your request. 

Please be as detailed as possible and include specific dates and timeframes in your dispute explanation. When providing supporting documentation, please do not send photographs or smart phone pictures, as they are not compatible with our system. Our fax number is XXXX and our email address is XXXX. Awaiting your response. We appreciate this opportunity to be of service. 

Merchant Acquirer Please Note : the attached email came through the Citibank secured email environment from the customer and was forwarded to the Citibank dispute area from our Customer Service Unit. 

Billing Dispute Unit, XXXX XX/XX/XXXX I emailed a response pointing to my initial email from XX/XX/XXXX, and forwarded all documents numbered above ( 1-6 ), as I believed everything asked for was already furnished on that communication. 

XX/XX/XXXX Citi responds stating that the dispute is closed because " we understand that you hired another merchant to complete the work, as the merchandise installed by the merchant can not be made available for return in the condition it was received. As a result, we have closed our investigation. '' See attachment named Citi Response XXXX. 

XX/XX/XXXX, I responded to Citi with the following email : Good afternoon, I received attached letter stating that my dispute was closed because I " hired another merchant to complete the work '' I kindly ask for clarification as I have not hired another merchant to complete/fix the work performed by XXXX XXXX . I obtained a quote from a separate merchant, which corroborates my claim that the work performed by XXXX XXXX was not done properly, and needs to be re-done. However, at this time, the work has not been completed/fixed. 

Please feel free to contact me via email or phone. 
Thank you for your time, Note that I did not receive a response back from Citi. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I called Citi 's dispute department to inquire once more and attempt to either clarify or understand why Citi though that I had hired another vendor. The rep instructed me to sign the response letter from Citi dated XXXX, and email it back to the dispute team with the explanation that I had not hired another merchant ( note that I had already emailed the dispute team with this info on XX/XX/XXXX ). The rep also pointed out that on Citi 's original information request from XX/XX/XXXX, Citi failed to inform me that there was a separate dispute ID for each transaction, and this could have caused the information sent XX/XX/XXXX to be applied to only one disputed transaction. 

I did as instructed and both emailed and faxed Citi all documentation from XX/XX/XXXX, explained that I had NOT hired another vendor, simply obtained a quote as proof that the work performed by XXXX was poorly done, and asked for the disputes to be re-opened. This was all done XX/XX/XXXX. 

XX/XX/XXXX, I received communication from Citi stating that the disputes were closed because too much time had passed since the transaction and now they could not be disputed. See attachment named Citi Response XXXX. 

I immediately called Citi indicating that these transactions were disputed on XX/XX/XXXX, and that if the transactions were past the dispute timeframe, the disputes would not have been opened and under investigation for the past few months. The rep informed me that a " referral '' was placed to re-open and investigate the disputes, along with re-instating conditional credit, which at this point, was reversed by Citi. 

XXXX XXXX No response from Citi on the continuation of the disputes or applying the conditional credit. Again, I called, again a " referral '' was placed to investigate. Note that each rep indicated that I should have received a response within 4-6 business days. 

XXXX XXXX I had not heard back from Citi . I called again, the rep insisted that he would place a referral and that nothing else could be done, and there was no one higher that I could speak to regarding the matter. As you can imagine, at this point I was quite frustrated with these interactions, as I think any reasonable person would be. This rep again tried to tell me that the transactions were " too old '' to dispute, I of course, corrected him. This rep was also able to confirm a key piece of information that I found troubling- Through this dispute process, since XX/XX/XXXX, now XX/XX/XXXX, Citi had never contacted the merchant regarding these disputes... I agreed to have the " referral '' placed again. 

XXXX XXXX I emailed Citi to memorialize my calls from XXXX XXXX and kindly ask that they take my dispute seriously, and complete the investigation. 

XXXX XXXX Citi responded saying that the disputes were closed because I had hired another merchant to complete the work.. Again, the same reason erroneously given for closing the disputes on XX/XX/XXXX. 

As you can see, I have complied with everything asked of me from Citi for these disputes to be investigated, and what I found is that ( a ) Citi has not taken my disputes seriously, which is truly an abusive and unfair practice on Citi 's part, or ( b ) they made a mistake somewhere along the dispute process by not contacting the merchant in time, and decided to end this investigation at my peril. Either way, I hope that you can help me find a solution, as this was a large transaction, and having this type of treatment from a banking institution is simply unacceptable.

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