Consumer complaint received 2019-02-21
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: CA
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:
Step 1. Fraudulent purchases in XXXX Step 2.Unprofessional handling and cooperation from Citibank.

Step 3. OnThursday XX/XX/XXXX about six XXXX XXXX received a mobile phone call from a man stating that he was from the Citibank fraud department Citibank was displayed on his phone as an incoming call. she relate a lot of XXXX personal information that only a bank should know as an example the balance on the credit card account and other personal numbers that have bank would have. he requested me to relay the other missing numbers to verify that he was truly talking to XXXX. he was claiming that there was activity on my card and asked if I had made an {$800.00} transaction in XXXX and wanted to see if it was me. I told him that I had not made a purchase and that I would call Citibank direct and at his insistence he said he could stop the transaction immediately and stop  further purchases in XXXX and alert the fraud department. he also received my home phone number to have two lines going at the same time that he could talk to the XXXX vendor simultaneously. he claimed he was going to send me a new card that would have no interest fees for one year because he could see that I had a good payment record. after hanging up and telling my wife XXXX she could see that it was not a legitimate call and said you got scammed. I called Citibank in mediately and talk to a representative there who said it was not their true fraud representative and they would stop any further purchases immediately and send me a new credit card. she also recommended that I change my mobile phone number, which I did, so that the person could not access my phone for further access and possibly get more personal information. after receiving the next billing statement that itemized all purchases I about fell over because {$20000.00} worth of transactions were purchased within 2 hours on my card in XXXX. I have never been to XXXX nor do I know anyone who lives there. when I called Citibank to inform them that these purchases were not mine nor did I authorize them they replied that they will not be charging me for those and could see that it was not me that did it. soon thereafter Citibank claimed I swipe the card there in XXXX, which is impossible since the card never left my possession. Never has XXXX or the credit card bin to XXXX. If he had gone to that country he would have informed Citibank to allow the transactions as he has done in the other out of USA trips with a starting and ending date of travel. On XX/XX/XXXX the thief was trying to use the card but Citibank blocked it and would not allow the purchase to take place. XXXX and XXXX tried in good-faith to work with Citibank and they claim that since I gave the numbers away that is his responsibility to pay the {$20000.00} they said how do we know that you did not give the numbers to your friend? that was insulting after being a faithful on-time payment customer for over 20 years. The bank did not protect me from these fraudulent purchases. in the past Citibank would stop transactions that were excessively large and unusual. Why they did not this time I do not know. It is taking more than 4 months to work on this because Citibank said it was not my purchase and then they change their mind after further review and made a decision without asking XXXX or any questions. We could not talk to a representative a responsible person and were placed on hold many times and bounced around the phone system. On XX/XX/XXXX we inform XXXX and also the social Security office in case the person had access to my social security number. The XXXX XXXX Police department was also informed and a report was taken. 
Step 4. Citibank Billing dispute XXXX XXXX XXXX , South Dakota XXXX Step 5.XXXX XXXX-Citibank- Unknown

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