Consumer complaint received 2017-12-21
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: TX
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Trouble using your card
Sub-issue: Can't use card to make purchases

Complaint:
I have been a loyal customer of Citi for 2 or 3 years, always in good standing, and every payment made on time. 

I observe on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX that my XXXX XXXX XXXX credit card is being denied for some transactions. I call Customer Service that same day and inform the representative that my card is being denied and I do n't know why. I note that my available credit appears as {$0.00} when I log in online. The representative informs me that my credit limit is adequate for further charges and everything looks fine to her so I should continue as usual. Just in case my balance versus the credit limit is a concern, I make an online early payment of my previous statement balance to reduce the overall balance. The following day, I call Customer Service again to confirm that everything looks okay to them. 

On XXXX/XXXX/XXXX XXXX writes me an email informing me that their latest paper statement was returned to sender, and therefore I need to update my address. However, my address has n't changed and is the same address I 've been living at since XXXX. All previous mail communications until now have been successfully delivered. However I have encountered this issue once before and determined that removing the 'A ' from the apartment number in my address ( as in 'XXXX XXXX ' instead of 'XXXX XXXX ' ) seems to remediate this issue when it occurs so I asked for the letter 'A ' to be removed from my address ' apartment number. The agent assured me that the address would be updated to remove the 'A ' and that I would be good to go once the update had processed. On XXXX/XXXX/XXXX I logged in and made another online payment, this time for the full balance on the card. I observed that the available credit on the card was restored to a non-zero number. 

On XXXX/XXXX/XXXX XXXX wrote me an email telling me that my address was successfully updated. On that same day, my internet provider attempted to take an automated payment from the card and was denied. 

On XXXX/XXXX/XXXX, my electricity provider, renter 's insurance provider, and auto insurance provider all attempted to take a payment and also they were denied. I am very concerned by the late fees and credit bureau reporting implications of these bounced payments, as I was not able to discover and pay all of my bills on their due dates as XXXX continued to reject auto-pay charge after charge. 

On XXXX/XXXX/XXXX, after I had changed all of the accounts I could think of to auto-pay using other cards, XXXX texted me to inform me that my account was now suspected of fraud. I called the number they asked me to in the text and plodded through unhelpful conversation after unhelpful conversation with several different overseas agents with inaccessible accents. The confused agents were unable to articulate to me why my card still was n't working, nor could they articulate why my card, which had a balance of {$0.00}, was being flagged for fraud, though one suggested that a ( recurring! ) {$2.00} transaction from XXXX, which I have been paying consistently on the same day every month for months, was the reason I was suspected of fraud. The agents assured me that whatever problem had been occurring would be solved and that I should not worry further. I expressed my frustration with the entire situation to the agents, and informed them of my intention to escalate my concerns to the CFPB.

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