Consumer complaint received 2020-12-04
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: PA
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:
On XX/XX/XXXX I paid a deposit for {$5000.00} for licensed/referred contractor for work to be done at my home. While this contractor was moving forward with our local Township permits and zoning applications ( or so I thought from emails, etc. ), he didn't show up to start work on XX/XX/XXXX as communicated and instead informed me he will not be doing the work. He initially sent an email stating he would return all funds to my credit card, but when the funds weren't showing up, he later stated he didn't have my money and can't return the funds with no explanation. He never ordered the materials he was using the deposit for I also learned. 

I tried for about a week, discussing options of repayment but on Friday XX/XX/XXXX he told me both over the phone and in writing he will not be able to come up with my money to return it. So I disputed the charge with Citibank that day, which generated an automated message and a conditional credit for the full amount. 

Citi first requested evidence for the dispute request on XX/XX/XXXX2020 and I gathered everything : screenshots of entire text string, emails, invoice, receipt, etc. and submitted it to their email address with attachments that same day. 

It wasn't until XX/XX/XXXX2020 Citi sent a new communicating, stating since they " hadn't received my evidence timely '' they were closing the dispute. The conditional credit was reversed. I went through a series of phone calls to learn why and how I could send my evidence to get the matter re-opened. On both XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX Citi sent an automated message confirming the receipt of my evidence and both stated and I confirmed online the dispute was reopened. 

I waited for the conditional credit per the site stating the credit would be again conditionally applied but it never was. I ended up paying my full statement due amount, including the {$5000.00} to avoid penalties or fees by the due date. 

In the meantime I had contacted Citi 's Dispute Center at least 3 additional times during XXXX to try to get the conditional credit reapplied, spoke to supervisors, re-replied to the billing dispute center emails but never had any luck. Each time a supervisor confirmed they had my evidence and didn't know why the investigator wasn't working the dispute nor why he wasn't responding to the internal messages. 

Yesterday XXXX, after paying the full amount, I called the Dispute Center one last time and a supervisor actually read information from my evidence and said it clearly shows this contractor was supposed to return your funds but he also didn't understand why the investigator isn't responding and he actually suggested I could take the matter to the FTC, hence my formal complaint today. 

This matter is well over 30 days from the date of my dispute. The timely evidence was only delayed due to Citi 's own system and Citi had already acknowledged receipt and stated they were working on the investigation several times by email. 

My greatest concern is now that Citi recommended I file a formal complaint they updated the same day my dispute status to " awaiting documents '' when no new request for information since XX/XX/XXXX was ever made. They clearly had ALL evidence back in XXXX when it was known it wasn't received by their system.

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