Consumer complaint received 2020-08-07
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: WI
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: Store credit card
Issue: Fees or interest
Sub-issue: Charged too much interest

Complaint:
I bought some electronics at bestbuy using my bestbuy store credit card with 18 months interest free financing. I set up recurring payments to pay the minimum with the intention of paying off the loan in a lump sum at the appropriate time. In the past when I have done this, I have been able to log into my account easily to see when the promotion was ending to make the full payment. This time, it looks like bestbuy transferred the credit card management site to Citi bank and even though they claim you can log in with your bestbuy account information, I couldn't log in when redirected to the site. I wasn't able to call in time to have this login issues resolved. And because I setup automatic recurring payments, I thought I had ample time. To my surprise, I saw an email with a balance much higher than the amount left to be paid off ( {$4300.00} instead of {$2800.00} ). Between Citi bank and/or bestbuy, it looks like they pile up all the interest accrued for the 18 months of the promotion period and apply all that at the end ( XX/XX/XXXX for me ) for you to pay, which is an unexpected and crazy amount to begin with. I have not seen any interest charge on my other credit cards applied in this deceitful way. 

Being a loyal customer for over 10 years now, I have tried working with them to get these unreasonable interests off but they have been very inflexible to work with and it really seems like they don't care, even with the hard times we are in, given the pandemic and are just happy to stick me with the interest of {$720.00} and {$920.00} for 2 consecutive months. 
I spoke with a representative about their covid relief plan, which allows an extra 2 months extension of the promotion and she said she will be able to apply that for me so I pay off the loan, which I paid off right there with my emergency stash funds. The extension was to allow me till XX/XX/XXXX and I paid the full balance off XX/XX/XXXX. However, I still see the second interest of {$720.00} after 2 days and when I called in again just today ( XX/XX/XXXX ), they are telling me they can only take off one interest charge within a calendar year so there is nothing they can do. They are now saying that i requested the assistance after they had charged the interest so it doesn't apply to me. 
I honestly do not know what to do and don't have the funds for this charge, which I strongly feel is not a fair charge to begin with. This does not seem fair at all being at the hands of such big companies charging me this crazy amount in these crazy times and basically sticking me with a severely unfair debt in my opinion. To make it even more painful, the customer service representatives only say they completely understand me but there is nothing at all they can do. I have never felt so helpless before. 
I am asking that you please step in here and help me out of this predicament. I am happy to answer any additional questions via phone.

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