Consumer complaint received 2017-10-04
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: MD
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:
On or about XXXX XXXX, XXXX I received a phone call from CitiBank with whom I have a MasterCard account. They informed me that there had been what they believed to be fraudulent activity on my account. There were 6 identical charge incidents of XXXX  that were dated XXXX XXXX, XXXX cited as having come from XXXX with a Merchant ID of  XXXX. 

I informed CitiBank that these charges were not mine. The card account was closed and a new card was issued to me. I was informed that the charges had been removed from my account and that an investigation would take place. 

Several weeks later, CitiBank mailed statements to me requesting my signature which I believed stated that these were not charges that had been made by me and that they were pursuing the matter with XXXX. I attached a statement that they could see that none of these charges were for my XXXX number and cited different phone numbers for each charge. I do have a XXXX but these were numbers and charges that are not related to MY phone or MY account. 

I was later notified by mail that two of the charges had been permanently removed from my CitiBank account. 

Recently I received another statement by mail stating that the investigation was complete and that the remaining four charges had been permanently reinstated to my account and charges were due. 

I called CitiBank and I spoke to XXXX in the CitiBank fraud department and was informed that I had signed a statement making me accountable for those four charges. I was unable to convince him that a mistake may have been made and I may have made it by possibly misunderstanding the document, but I thought that was unlikely. I did become upset at his repeating that they had the legal statement with my signature for four of  those charges. I had not kept a copy of the signature request statements and asked that a copy of each of those documents be sent to me. 
I received the copies Monday, XXXX XXXX, XXXX. 

Those statements are included in the attachments.
I pointed out that there were six identical charges of {$100.00} which were made on the same day and with the same merchant ID : XXXX which initiated their call to me as they suspected fraudulent activity was occurring. They were correct in their suspicions! Those documents were sent later for each of the six charges and I did send them back to them after signing, but I was under the impression that those statements meant that they would pursue the issue with XXXX, not expect me to pay for those charges that were not mine. 

I feel like I was duped by CitiBank. 

I had thought I was helping them to retrieve the money from XXXX when I signed those documents. 

I had erased some of the emails CitiBank sent and did not keep a copy of the documents I signed as I had assumed that CitiBank was on my side of this dispute and that they were taking responsibility for settling the charges as fraud on my account as I did not make the charges. 

The copies that I asked for and received of those signed documents are all stating that those ARE NOT charges that I had made. 

Of the statements that I do have, one is one of two emails I received stating the charge is permanently removed from my account. 

I have attached a series of documents with as much of the information regarding this issue as possible including my card statements and the communications from CitiBank showing the different phone numbers involved, etc. 

CitiBank has declined to make any further comment other than they have my signed documents. 

I did not make ANY of those six charges, do not understand why only two of them have apparently been removed and the remaining four were reinstated as charges to my new CitiBank card account, and am in hopes that you can help me resolve this issue. 

Thank you XXXX XXXX XXXX

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