Consumer complaint received 2021-04-29
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: CA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Money was not available when promised

Complaint:
On Friday XX/XX/XXXX, my sister wired me {$10000.00} to my Citibank account that I needed to pay bills. The money did not arrive later that day as expected. I waited and on Monday XX/XX/XXXX, when the money had still not arrived I called the sending bank ( XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX ) after calling Citibank and discovered that they had made a mistake and had left out a digit from my bank account number, so that it was a 9 digit account number, rather than a 10 digit account number. I therefore had XXXX XXXX complete an amendment to this wire. The next day ( Tuesday, XX/XX/XXXX ) XXXX XXXX told me that Citibank had already notified them that they ( Citibank ) were in receipt of the funds but and were transferring it to my account. So I waited another day. When the funds still hadn't shown up by XX/XX/XXXX, I called Citibank 's wire department again and was told that because it was an amended wire it could take between " two and ten business days '' from the receipt of the amendment but that it was all up to the " back office ''. I asked for them to please ask " the back office '' to prioritize it if possible because I needed the funds to pay many bills that were overdue. I waited patiently and called Citibank every other day afterwards to check on the status of the account, and was told by the wire department each time that they had no way of knowing and that it was up to the wire department. Finally, on the eighth or ninth business day after the amendment, Thursday, XX/XX/XXXX, I asked the sending bank for an inquiry into why it should take so long when they had stated that they were in receipt of the funds and were crediting it to my account 9 days earlier. The next day, XX/XX/XXXX, Citibank finally said that the funds had been credited to another person 's account, even though we had only supplied nine digits. On Monday, XX/XX/XXXX, they said they had permission from that person to debit that person 's account and credit my account, but now they were waiting for " official '' permission. I was told on Wednesday morning that they had already received that " official '' permission the previous day and that it was in the process of being transferred. On Thursday, XX/XX/XXXX business days after the amendment, I have still not received the funds, and was just told by the wire department that it could take up to " two to ten business days again '' and when I asked why, they said that they did not know and that it was all up to the " back office '' again and the wire department told me explicitly that they did not know how the " back office '' went about its business. I feel that Citibank needs to know that holding on to my money and taking three weeks ( or possibly much more ) to complete this process is not acceptable nor is not being able to give me a timeline more specific than " two to ten business days '' twice in a row!

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