Consumer complaint received 2023-10-03
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: NY
Product: Credit card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Trouble using your card
Sub-issue: Can't use card to make purchases

Complaint:
When I tried to make a large purchase online with my Citibank credit card that had been opened for 2 months, I set off a fraud alert. I completely understood why I set off the alert so I was prepared to jump through some hoops but the process was unnecessarily frustrating and invasive. My complaint is about the fraud verification process. I spoke to XXXX representatives on XXXX separate occasions ( XXXX on XX/XX/03 at XXXX XXXX & XXXX? at XXXX XXXX ) to try to confirm this attempted purchase was not fraud. I provided them with the verbal password I set with Citibank, then somehow they were unable to verify me by text even though I am prompted for a verification code by SMS every time I log into Citibank online. They both could not explain to me why I could not verify by text using my cell phone and then kept asking me for more and more information. I gave them my employer and work number but I was calling Citibank after my workplace was closed so they could not call my workplace to verify me. Then they asked me for the last XXXX digits of my non-Citibank checking account, which was still not good enough so they asked for the full number of my credit card from another bank, which completely contradicts what Citibank claims in their FAQs ( they claim their representatives would never ask for sensitive information like this and that it is a scam if they do ). I provided them this information because I needed to make the purchase but I had to prepare myself for possible fraud on my other credit card. It was not completely communicated to me why this was necessary, especially because it leaves my financial information vulnerable to abuse. I was told they needed this info for bank to bank verification, which just turned out to be the Citibank representative calling my other bank 's customer service line to verify I was their customer via XXXX conference. The call to my other bank kept dropping, likely because the representatives thought the Citibank representative was a fraudster as Citibank 's fraud verification is basically trying to force my other bank to reveal their customer 's sensitive information over the phone just to follow Citibank 's anti-fraud protocols. In the end, I was on the phone for close to a hour and on hold for over XXXX minutes without any satisfactory resolution because the representative could not successfully conference in an agent from my bank. I offered to verify myself at the physical Citibank branch with physical ID and was told I could not and had to do verification over the phone. I was then told that I had to wait XXXX business days to receive a letter to even be able to verify my account. It did not help that both representatives did not seem to know what to say whenever I asked the reason for why they are asking for this information. They would play XXXX or pretend not to hear me or misunderstand me. It was a very frustrating experience.

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