Consumer complaint received 2020-05-30
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: FL
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Advertising and marketing, including promotional offers
Sub-issue: Confusing or misleading advertising about the credit card

Complaint:
Citi offered a promotion that if you open a savings account ( 1.66 percent at time of offer, now 1.55 but that is as expected, rate can fluctuate ) then your double cashback card ( which I had for many years a pays 1 % at purchase and 1 % at payment ) would go from 2 % to 2.5 % I tried recently to try to get confirmation that I was indeed getting 2.5, and for first 3 attempts I could get no answer, just a run around sending me to different departments.

Today I finally got someone on chat that said " Yes you are eligible for the 2.5 %, call this number ( they gave me the wrong number it was the savings account support ), I am now on with an agent after a long hold and they are not helping, claiming I have to prove the offer ( there are many references to it with a simple XXXX search ). 

Here is a summary of my main complaint points. 
1/ if a bank or Credit card makes a promotional offer incentive like an increase in your credit card cashback rate it should be simple to validate. There should be a confirmation email saying you have the new cashback rate, and as well it should be easy for the consumer to see the information ( how much cashback am I getting if there are special deals ) on the website. 

2/ i feel very strongly this is a case of false advertising, everything implied there would be no action required by the consumer, and to make matters worse, there is NO WAY for the consumer to confirm he/she received the benefit after opening the savings account! No where in any of the transactions was there information that I must " apply '' and I only found this out by checking. Now that I have the information that I must " apply '', there is no simple process, no email that I can send, no ability in their chat support. In the time I have spent just to write this I am on my 4th person on the phone, in one case they just dropped me and transferred me to the debit card department. I am now with someone in the credit card department, and after explaining their first response was " so you want to open a savings account ''. After patiently restating the situation and asking them to listen clearly, I am now on hold for a " specialist ''. 

The close of the call wound up with this completely unacceptable situation A/ They did confirm that I should have the 2.5 % rate on my double cash card but do not B/ they gave me the account servicing number and the priority banking number which I have to call during the week, she could not get hold of anyone. She said that since there are two different departments involved credit card and banking, no one agent can handle the situation, and they have no support ticket that  can be opened, so bottom line instead of servicing me, I wasted hours with no solution other than putting the ball back in my court again I will be attempting to get them to active the rate and also retroactively honor it. 

here is one reference, its old and out of date, and the offer which was made via the website when I logged in is no longer there. 
https : //www.bankcheckingsavings.com/citi-account-bundle/

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