Consumer complaint received 2020-09-10
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: NY
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: Store credit card
Issue: Problem when making payments
Sub-issue: Problem during payment process

Complaint:
In XX/XX/XXXX I purchased a bedroom set from Macy 's on a promotion of 24 months interest free financing. I calculated that I would have to pay about $ XXXX/month to pay this off in the 2 years so I would not have to pay interest. When I started making payments I was told I had to call them to make each payment so that the payment could be split properly and I could tell them to apply a certain amount towards the furniture and a certain amount towards my regular balance. When I was in the store during the XXXX holidays I made payments ( {$1500.00} total payments ) towards my account as I wanted to make payments for my purchases as I went. Somehow these payments were applied towards my furniture so it was almost all paid off even after I was told this was not possible to happen. When I was reviewing my statements in XX/XX/XXXX I noticed that these payments were applied to the furniture. I made many calls to the credit card and nothing worked as I was told it would take 2-3 months to fix. After much frustration with the credit card department I even tried to call the local store and the corporate office and was told yes it would take 2-3 months to be corrected. I waited a little longer then the 2-3 months to call back as many people were working remote with Covid-19. In XX/XX/XXXX I finally called Macy 's credit  again and was on hold until I got a supervisor XXXX who fixed the balance within days and NOT 2-3 months. Now I called the credit department on XX/XX/XXXX to make my monthly payment to have it split towards furniture and regular purchases. {$400.00} split {$200.00} towards furniture & {$200.00} towards regular purchases confirmation # XXXX. While I was on hold to get someone to make this payment with there was a message stating they would start charging {$5.00} beginning in XXXX to make a payment with a live person so while I was on the phone to make the payment I also told the employee to communicate to his supervisors that the {$5.00} charge would not be acceptable. I would gladly make the payment online or in the store but was told that's not possible. I am a former Macy 's employee and know that years ago from a cash register we used to be able to accept payments and split them between customer 's accounts. So now customers have to call to split payments and when they call they are going to be charged for talking to a live person? So even though I spoke to someone and have a confirmation number my payment was not split as requested and it all was applied to my regular balance. At this point they will profit as my furniture is never going to be paid off by the 24 months. I'm exasperated as I called on XX/XX/XXXX to speak to a supervisor. I was on hold for about 20 minutes and was told they would have a supervisor call me back. Here I am a week and a half later and nobody has called me back.

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