Consumer complaint received 2023-03-09
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: CA
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: Card was charged for something you did not purchase with the card

Complaint:
Our mailbox was broken into last XXXX and whomever broke into it received my debit and credit card from XXXXXXXX XXXX as well as many other things I'm sure. Shortly after I was informed by XXXX that there was possible fraud. They sent me additional alerts in quick succession so I decided to head straight to the bank. While I was sitting with the banker and they were looking at my accounts trying to figure it out they noticed that someone was currently transferring all the money from my savings to my checking so they raced to close my accounts before the person could actually take it out of my checking. I went home and told my sister about it and she said thats funny because someone had made changes on our dads phone line through verison the same day. The person had transferred my dads cell phone number to a phone that was in their possession so all of my dads calls and texts were now going to this new phone. Then I realized that the phone number on my XXXX account had been changed to my dads cell number. Over the next couple of months I realized that there were 2 fraudulent transactions on my home depot card that I didn't recognize, a new XXXX credit card opened in my name, and once my dad got his phone number back there were texts from XXXX XXXX. Our mail box is the type that is located at the end of the street and has compartments for each house on the street so when my neighbor realized the back was opened and all the boxes were cleaned out he reported it to the post office. My sister called the police and tried to make a statement but they would not take her statement because she had not actually had her identity stolen or her cards used ( at least not that she was aware of at that time ). I called the number on the back of my Home Depot card which is serviced by Citibank, and put in a claim for the fraudulent charges as well as doing what was necessary to clear up the issues with all the other things that were stolen. However after waiting the allotted time Citibank decided to deny my claim. I called again and got them to reopen the case and continue to investigate but again my claim was denied. Their reason was that my ID was checked during the purchase, however I had my ID in my possession the entire time so either they are lying or there was a fake ID made in my name. I spend hundreds to thousands of dollars at Home Depot every month and they never check my ID, so I find it difficult to believe that they manually checked ID when this fraudulent person came in. I do understand that this situation is more difficult then the average fraud because the person is local and went to 2 Home Depots in my area. Again it was someone close enough to break open my mail box so clearly they are not far from me. My sister did eventually realize she had fraud on an XXXX XXXXXXXX card and that transaction was done in the city of XXXX XXXX just like one of the Home Depot transactions of mine. Either way my claim has been denied twice and Home Depot/Citibank is fraudulently charging me almost {$700.00}. Please help me get this resolved since they clearly are not following through with their obligation to help me. Thank you!

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