Consumer complaint received 2018-05-01
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: NJ
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Savings account
Issue: Problem caused by your funds being low
Sub-issue: Non-sufficient funds and associated fees

Complaint:
I have had a checking and savings account at Citibank for approx 30 years. As far as I know, during all this period, the accounts were " linked '' -- ie, funds could be moved from one to another. In past years, I worked at a firm that had some sort of business relationship with Citibank under which the bank would pay some quantifiable amount of interest on amounts maintained in the savings account. For this reason, I typically tried to maintain as much money in the savings account as possible, and shift funds to checking only to the extent needed to pay bills. 

At some point ( I think following financial crisis in XX/XX/XXXX ), the amount of interest paid on money in the savings account went down drastically, to a mere nominal amount -- a few basis points. From that point going forward, I just kept the majority of funds in the checking account, and only a nominal amount in the savings account, as I felt there was no real value in keeping funds in savings. 

In XX/XX/XXXX, after receiving numerous requests from Citibank for us to " go paperless '', we checked the box online and went paperless -- ie, written statements were no longer mailed to us. 

In late XX/XX/XXXX/early XX/XX/XXXX, I received an email from Citibank saying that my savings account was overdrawn, and an overdraft fee had been assessed. I talked with my wife, and we confirmed we had not removed any monies from the savings account, so I called Citibank to see what was going on. 

Citibank told me that when we " went paperless '' in XX/XX/XXXX,  Citibank " de-linked '' our checking and savings accounts, and began taking $ XXXX/month out of the savings account ( apparently because Citibank has a policy of charging $ XXXX/month for a savings account that does not contain some minimum amount of funds or is not linked to a checking account that maintains such minimum amount -- please note that I'm confident that whatever minimum level they required, we always had sufficient funds in our checking account ) each month. 

Apparently, by XX/XX/XXXX Citibank had completely emptied the savings account, but they assessed an additional $ XXXX/month fee on the XXXX balance account, which they withdrew from our checking account, AND they charged us an overdraft fee of {$34.00} for withdrawing money from our checking account to pay the {$25.00} fee! This is when they notified us of the overdraft fee they assessed against the savings account they has XXXX XXXX out, and that they had withdrawn these funds from our checking account. 

I told Citibank this was unacceptable, and it seemed criminal to me, and I demanded that they return all the funds they had taken from our savings account from the time they de-linked our accounts in XX/XX/XXXX, and reverse the overdraft fees they charged us. They refused to refund any of the amounts they had taken from us. I told them I would take whatever action I could to force them to return the monies they had taken from us, and that I believed they were effectively converting/stealing this money from us, which was clearly wrong. I also told them I would take steps to close my Citibank checking account ( and explained this takes some time, because we pay many bills electronically out of the checking account, and do not want to close the account before we are sure these bills are set to be paid in another way ), but that I wanted to close the savings account immediately. They assured me they would close the savings account immediately ( and that although they would not return any of the money they had taken from us, because the savings account would be closed there would not be any more fees charged in relation to the savings account, because it would be closed ). 

We just received a statement from Citibank for this past month 's activity, and it shows the savings account as still being open, and also shows that they have continued to assess the $ XXXX/month fee against that XXXX balance account, and an overdraft fee of {$34.00} for their taking money out of our checking account to pay the {$25.00} fee! 

I am writing to ask for your help on two fronts. First, I would like your help in forcing Citibank to return the money they have taken from me and my wife -- I estimate this amount to be approx {$500.00}. Second, I suspect it could be helpful to others if you investigate this further -- however/whatever they are doing to de-link customer accounts when the customers " go paperless '', and then charge those customers fees for holding insufficient funds in one of the accounts, may well be going on broadly, and it may affect numerous bank customers. 

It seems unlikely to me that this kind of thing would be an isolated issue, and seems to me that when funds are systematically removed by Citibank from dormant accounts ( I don't think I have added or removed funds from our savings account for years ), with such removals being characterized as " fees '', until such accounts are emptied, and not even stopping then, but instead then pulling funds from someone's checking account to pay these " fees '', and at the same time assessing additional " overdraft fees '' for doing so, this must be done with some knowledge/intent by management. To me, this type of behavior by a federally licensed fiduciary seems criminal and should be stopped. 

Please let me know what you can do to help me. Thanks for your time and assistance.

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