Consumer complaint received 2018-10-26
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: NY
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Funds not handled or disbursed as instructed

Complaint:
Citigroup FROZE ALL my accounts from XX/XX/XXXX-XX/XX/2018 at end of business day unfroze them. I was unable to withdraw, transfer money, get cash or pay bills. This action included brokerage accounts and savings, checking accounts. I live on these accounts as I am retired and personally appear in the Branch at XXXX XXXX XXXX  XXXX, XXXX XXXX, N.Y. XXXX, tel. # XXXX XXXX XXXX, several times a month for banking or brokerage business and speak to XXXX XXXX , XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX. 
During XX/XX/2018, I personally spoke to these people several times on account matters in similar fashion as I have for years. In fact, on Friday XX/XX/2018 I received a cell call from XXXX XXXX while in XXXX, R.I. and we had a pleasant conversation over nothing particular and I went on with my trip. 
XX/XX/XXXX in early afternoon, I needed some cash and went to my bank ATM and could not get access to ANY account. I went into the branch and waited to speak to XXXX XXXX the Citigold rel. Manager. Several people were ahead of me so I waited. Maybe close to an hour later she spoke to me and told me 100 other people in the branch had the same thing done. XXXX was working on it to fix it. I went home and got a debit card from another bank where I keep a small amount of funds. I returned to the ATM got funds. This took me about 2 1/2 hours. 
Friday XX/XX/XXXX I returned to bank found all accounts still frozen. This time I spoke to Branch Manager ( new person and do not know name ) and XXXX. In front of branch manager, XXXX said that XXXX was working on it and accounts would be unfrozen by XXXX that day. I relied on her statement and left. Saturday about XXXX I went to bank ATM for cash and found accounts still frozen. Called XXXX found out accounts frozen since XX/XX/XXXX and she would call the necessary people to correct, this action took almost XXXX hour. No change. Sunday I realized I would need access to the frozen funds for normal bill payments/cash in about 3 days. As a retired lawyer, I started to prepare an Order to Show Cause for a judge to immediately release my accounts so I could pay bills without borrowing money or defaulting. I worked on it about 5 hours on Sunday. XXXX, XXXX called Tuesday morning said accounts would be unfroze by close of business on Tuesday. Accounts were unfrozen. 
My wife found a letter ( attached ) from Citigroup received by her in mid XX/XX/XXXX. saying she needed to give bank financial info and speak to bank employees or brokerage accounts might be affected. We were not planning any brokerage actions and bank personal had not asked any questions of us for more info. In small print on rear it said failure to give this info could cause banking accounts to be affected. I personally spoke to these people many times in XX/XX/XXXX. and no particular questions. 
1. Never received notice about banking accounts frozen until discovered the day after.

2. Citibank deliberately allowed this error to not be corrected for 8 days. This allowed bank employees to enjoy the 3 day XXXX XXXX weekend while I was not. It is not believable this action could not have been corrected earlier. Citi did not want to do it! 
3.Bank Manager on Friday XX/XX/2018 did not follow up and allowed bank employees to enjoy a 3 day weekend and me to suffer including the 100 or so other people from the same branch. 
4. How many other people had this irresponsible lack of action and causing extreme emotional stress?

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