Consumer complaint received 2021-03-08
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: MD
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Other banking product or service
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Problem making or receiving payments

Complaint:
Dear Madam/Sir ; This is an issue of a promotion from Citibank that I dont feel they honored. I would appreciate if you can assist me in getting Citibank to honor their commitment in the promotion namely to credit XXXX frequent flyer miles to my XXXX XXXX account. 

I had a Citibank Credit card and kept getting repeated offers to open up a Citibank checking account. The promotion required that in the first two-months after the card was initiated that you purchase {$1000.00} using the Citibank Debit or ATM Card. And that within two months of the account being opened, you had one or more recurring charges to the account, If you fulfilled those requirements, which I did, you would get XXXX bonus XXXX XXXX miles. 

I usually ignore almost all promotions, but in this case the email promotion offers were consistent, and in the end figured why not. XXXX partners ( XXXX, XXXX, XXXX XXXX all fly to the XXXX XXXX, where I regularly travel for work ( we have a non-profit organization that works to provide health care to disadvantaged youth in rural schools. And thus could use the miles to save money for myself and the non-profit organization when I fly to XXXX to assist as a volunteer in this program.. 

I complied with the requirements as listed in bold letters ( this is verified by the Citibank checking account statements. I had actually called the Citibank help line to ask what sort of charges would qualify. And they said utility or other regular payments such as auto insurance. 

I opened up the account by XXXX. I had a debit for {$1000.00} within the two month period required. And two regular payments ( my auto insurance, my electrical bill ) were set up to automatically debit from the Citibank account, which they did within this two month period. 

But when the XXXX miles were not credited, I kept asking Citibank by email and on the phone why. Kept getting persons that seemed to not know much about the promotion, but said they would forward to the query to the persons that handle this. And then on repeat calls, said they would involve a manager. But the three responses they I received by regular mails dated XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/2020 were all essentially the same form letter. Saying that I had not completed the required transactions with the designated time period. Which is obviously not true. 

As best as I can tell the basis for the refusal is that I did not set up the automatic payments using their system. But set it up directly from the utility or insurance company. 

But that requirement is not at all clear from their promotional material which I attach to this complaint. 

The Qualifying Bill Payment column on the promotional material under " Qualifying Bill Payment '' simple says " and 1 or more for 2 consecutive months '' and has a superscript " 2 '' which references the following note : " The Citi {$2.00} non-Citi ATM fee is waived if a monthly combined average balance of $ XXXX is maintained. Fees charged by other institutions for your transactions on non-Citibank ATMs are beyond Citibank 's control and are in addition to fees listed here '' When I pointed that out to the persons on the phone, that this note or the table listing requirements nowhere stated that automatic deductions had to be set up using the Citibank system, rather than that of the utility or insurance company. The person on the phone acknowledged that was a mistake, but they and Citibank can not be responsible for it. Why they can not own up to their mistake and misrepresentation is beyond me. Most companies I would think acknowledge when they made a mistake, and correct it. 

My contention is that no average consumer ( or even a diligent consumer, which I consider myself ) could figure out from this promotional material that the automatic checking account deductions had to be made using the Citibank system app, and not the system app of the utility. And because Citibank clearly had inaccurate promotional material, there really should be no debate about crediting me with the advertised benefit from the promotion. 

Beyond the question of honoring a commitment and acknowledging a fault, there are substantive financial implications. To buy those miles would cost me {$1600.00} with the current 25 % discount promotion currently in place. When the promotion expires on XX/XX/XXXX, the cost will be {$2100.00}. So this is not a trivial amount that resulted from Citibank failing to honor their commitment per the promotional materials. 

Thank you for your assistance with this matter.

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