Consumer complaint received 2020-11-08
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: MN
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: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
There is more than 1 complaint here so I will focus on Citi Bank/Mastercard  first, as the only item placed on that card was the XXXX XXXX Mini Projector but there will be " spillover '' information from the other dispute for XXXX XXXX/Visa To whom it may concern : On XX/XX/XXXX, I visited XXXX XXXX, Nevada with my Sister-in-law, and on the last day that we were going to be there, we stopped by an electronics stand called XXXX The Source Electronics in between the two casinos that we were traveling to and from. During this visit, a man named XXXX convinced me to buy a {$5000.00} XXXX XXXX mini projector ( which he showed to me on XXXX as being listed for {$5000.00} but I later released that this was being sold by a third-party and therefore, according to XXXX, they could put any price that they wanted, the conversation that proves this is attached in many of my communications with the credit card companies ) which is actually a rebranded {$250.00} XXXX  projector, along with XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  XXXX  portable Bluetooth speakers that he charged me {$790.00} each for when you can buy a comparable unit for $ XXXX {$60.00} on XXXX depending on features and quality you want. 

This transaction was done over 2 credit cards so there are technically 2 complaints, one for XXXX XXXXVisa and one for Citi Bank/Mastercard. The mini projector was put on the Citi card so the dispute was handled by Mastercard. The Citi bank dispute/case number is XXXX for {$1000.00}. This is one of the craziest decisions because the receipt that was provided to Citi bank as proof that I agreed to pay the amount is not even the same amount as the amount in dispute, as you will see if you look at the attachment Citi bank dispute continuation.pdf you will see that the receipt sent in by the merchant not only has a different total ( {$1100.00} vs {$1000.00} ) but that the transaction numbers are different, the time of day is different and they claim that they sold me some platinum package for {$8900.00} off which implies that I bought some {$10000.00} platinum package from them when that is not the case at all, this receipt is for the XXXX XXXX  Mini Projector and that alone but they put down this platinum package as well as a solar wireless charger, the charger is not wireless, you must plug stuff into it, it is claimed as being XXXX XXXX  capacity but I can prove that it only holds about XXXX XXXX which I go over extensively in the document referenced before. Knowing all of this Mastercard still sided with the merchant because they were able to produce an obviously fraudulent receipt which even the people that I talked to afterward at the customer service centers agreed with but they said that once Mastercard makes a decision there is nothing they can do to change it unless we take action on our own. 

Here is a list of events as they happened : On XX/XX/XXXX20 I talked to XXXX at Citi to initially file the dispute because my son had looked at what I bought and told me that I had been ripped off. Citi wanted me to send them a copy of the itemized receipt and then I realized that I never got one, the only receipts that XXXX gave me only had the total amount charged and my signature on them, nothing else. So, they first went about getting an itemized receipt from the merchant. I did not receive anything until about a month and a half later at which point I got the letter from Citi bank with the itemized proof that I owed the money but as I said they were obviously not the same receipts, the total amount was different, the time of day was different, the transaction ID was different, any first-year investigator would know that this was not a valid receipt but somehow this was accepted as the new legal record. 

On XX/XX/XXXX20 I talked to XXXX about this issue stating that there must be some mistake and that this was obviously a fraudulent receipt that was sent to Citi bank I was told that they would investigate the claim and that a provisional hold was placed on my card. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I talked to XXXX who stated that I had actually been approved for winning the dispute but that my last submission ( which was sent by regular USPS mail ) had some blank pages and that they just needed me to resubmit my last filing with them to get the credit applied to my account so I promptly did what was requested of me and waited. 

A letter printed on XX/XX/XXXX20 was the last communication that I have had formally with Citi bank as it was the same letter they have been sending me for months that stated We have made every effort to resolve this dispute with the merchant and/or their bank but have not been successful. Unfortunately, the merchant is not willing to issue a credit to your account. We no longer have any additional recourse to pursue credit for you through the dispute process. You will need to seek other means to resolve this matter. Our investigation remains closed. 

The reason I have not filed this before now is that I never got the original paperwork from Citi Bank and XXXX XXXX as to why they made the determinations that they did until just recently. For the Citi bank case I received paperwork dated back to XX/XX/XXXX20 but I only received it within the last 30 days. It claims that no credit was given because the merchant claims that I never requested credit and that I did not contact them within 14 business days which you can see is completely false. I provided all the record of my text message interactions with the salesperson ( First name XXXX, cell phone number XXXX ) asking for a way to return the items to them within days of me arriving home ( on the XXXX of XX/XX/XXXX2020 ). 

I am not sure what else to include here for Citi bank but if you need any further information please feel free to contact me at XXXX or XXXX at any time. 

I will attach the text message record by its self, in its own pdf container, but it is also at the end of the Citi bank dispute continuation.pdf, this was just to show Citi bank that I had in fact asked for a refund within 14 days and followed the merchant 's arbitrary rules. The last letter from Citi Bank states that the complaint from the cardholder is ( This can be seen in the attachment Citi Bank Final Response.pdf ) : Merchant Reason Code XXXX Credit Not Processed 1 ) Did the merchant accept returned merchandise or the cancellation of services and fail to issue a credit as disclosed at the point of interaction : YES 2 ) One what date did the cardmember cancel? : XX/XX/XXXX2020 3 ) Did the merchant disclose their cancellation policy to the cardmember? NO 8 ) Did the cardholder cancel a contract for a timeshare or any similar provision of services within 14 calendar days of signing the contract? NO ( N/A ) 9 ) What documentation does the cardholder have to support their claim : cm was not satisfied with the item Item # 9 is really a complete lie, I gave them over 23 pages of reasons as to why I was not only dissatisfied but had been quite literally ripped off. Then the only response from the merchant was : To whom it may concern, No credit is due. 
The customer is supplied with all merchandise and has never requested a refund. 
Please let the customer contact us for all questions and concerns at XXXX. 

This was something that we did before contacting the credit card companies anyway because as I said one of the headphones arrived broken anyway, when I contacted them they told me that I would have to pay for both return shipping and the shipping of the new item out to me and that is when I and my son really started to consider that this company was just fraudulent. They will extract money out of you at every turn if possible and I dont know how but they seem to have Mastercard and Visas blessing to do this to people. Luckily it was just a large loss to my pride, and I could adsorb the ( hopefully ) temporary hit to my finances but I am sure that they have done this to hundreds if not thousands of customers. 

As you can see from the document entitled XXXX XXXX XXXX.pdf my son went to XXXX chat and asked them about the {$5000.00} XXXX XXXX Mini Projector and whether XXXX actually backed up those prices or of if the price could be set by the third party seller to whatever they wanted. According to the representative as long as the items were not deemed essential items such as hand sanitizer then there was no price checking ongoing. It was up to the consumer to evaluated whether the item was actually worth {$5000.00} or not. I then sent this transcript to the XXXX and never heard anything back from them at all but they did shut down the XXXX Access store that was selling the {$5000.00} item and started a brand new store called XXXX XXXX with the same pricing scheme as before but it was obviously the same people running it. 

All of this information I would have thought would be more than enough to get the credit card companies to reverse the transactions and that would be that ; I even offered to send all the stuff back to them to try to resell to some other people but that was never good enough. So now I am passing all of this off to as many consumer protection agencies and law enforcement agencies that I can think of and that will listen to my complaint. This will at least be sent to the Consumer Protection Bureau, FBI, FTC, SEC, and XXXX  if I can not find anymore. I expect that these agencies will actually do their job and look over the evidence and not just side with the merchant because they have a signed slip of paper. I didnt agree to be defrauded, so that slip of paper should be meaningless after all of the evidence I have provided. 

The letters attached as " Citi Bank Final Response are the last letters that I got in the mail from them but they may not be the last time I had contact with them over the phone, however, as things stand now, there is no active investigation on either account and according to them, I owe all the money that was charged. Please help me fight this as I do not have the money to hire a lawyer and fight it directly myself. 

Thank you, XXXX XXXX XX/XX/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 explanation