Consumer complaint received 2020-11-09
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: NM
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: Card was charged for something you did not purchase with the card

Complaint:
Recently a credit card number in my name was compromised, resulting in {$7000.00} of unauthorized charges being made against my Costco Visa card number. This card is issued by Citibank. I was fortunate enough to have XXXX XXXX call me to alert me to the fact that my card was being used in a suspicious manner. I, in turn, called Citibank to begin to rectify the situation. Even though weeks had apparently passed since the compromise and many thousands of dollars in fraudulent charges had been made by the time I became aware of the situation, Citibank still had no knowledge of the issue. I went through over an hour of excruciating detail with Citibank to identify legitimate versus illegitimate charges and felt that after more than an hour on the phone with a Citibank fraudulent charge expert that they had a handle as to which charges were authorized and which charges were not. 

Citibank cancelled the previous card number and issued me a new card and assured me that they were working to correct the situation. That is where the nightmare began. My billing cycle came due and I was billed for all of my authorized purchases in addition to all of the fraudulent charges. I called to ask that the unauthorized charges be removed from my bill and Citibank refused. I was told to sort through the now lengthy list of charges and pay only those I determined were authorized charges. This was after spending several lengthy phone conversations with Citibank fraud department. So I dutifully took on my new credit card services accounting assignment and sent Citibank the money for all of the charges I had actually made. 

The next billing cycle I discovered that one of the fraudulent charges appeared again on my statement. Again another hour on the phone with Citibank and I was assured they have it under control again. It turned out that this fraudulent charge was a recurring bill that Citibanks crack fraud investigative team failed to recognize after two months of investigation. Apparently Citibank allows vendors with recurring charges to obtain the new card number if it changes. Due to Citibanks unwillingness to even check that this fraudulent charge was recurring, my card number was again cancelled and a new number issued. Again, this second statement contained a long list of the previous fraudulent charges in addition to my authorized purchases. So after recalculating all of the charges that I had actually made, I sent off another payment to Citibank excluding all of the bogus charges which Citibank was still trying to get me to pay them for. 

On the third billing cycle, I incurred an interest charge on my account. I have paid my credit cards in full each month for over 30 years, so I again called Citibank and asked how this interest charge originated. I was told it was because I did what I was told and only sent in payment for the charges I had made and the interest was for the fraudulent balance that I did not pay. I had to threaten to cancel my card just to get the interest charge removed. 

We are starting on the fourth month after the card number was compromised and I have just been billed again for fraudulent charges from four months previous that Citibank still refuses to remove from my statement. 

Citibank has also repeatedly registered derogatory statements to credit reporting agencies that I am disputing an inordinate number of purchases. 

Here is my assessment after having been on the phone for hours and hours with any number of Citibank so-called fraud investigation team members and having my credit card number re-issued for the third time. Citibank encounters millions and millions of dollars in credit card losses each year ( Citibank lost {$830.00} XXXX dollars in the first quarter primarily due to credit card losses ). I believe that Citibank has created procedures and practices for repeatedly pushing fraudulent charges back onto customer accounts and playing a complex shell game to the extent that millions of Citibank customers inadvertently pay for fraudulent charges ( including interest charges ), thereby reducing Citibank credit card losses with no one the wiser. 

I am quite confident if you investigate the practices I have encountered at Citibank on just this one incident, you will discover a hanging thread that unravels into, what I believe to be, a complex, premeditated, intentional deception to bilk millions of dollars from legitimate Citibank customers in order for Citibank to reduce their credit card losses. There is no way in my mind that this process and procedure for handling fraudulent charges could have come about except that it generates a huge amount of confusion regarding what charges are actually authorized and owed for every Citibank customer ( 138 million ) that has ever had their card number compromised. 

This is just licensed theft as far as I am concerned and I would hope that our Federal government regulatory agencies would stop looking the other way. I believe Citibank saves a fortune on not having their own functional fraud detection program ( replacing it instead with this complex shell game of deception ) I had to be notified by XXXX XXXX that something was suspicious weeks after simultaneous charges on both coasts were taking place as well as multiple airline trips to and from city destinations that did not involve my own city for either departure or arrival. 

I would be happy to supply the excruciating account and statement details if you would be willing to look into this matter to protect 138 million other card users. I am sure that Citibanks telephone record details will more than validate what kind of deception is going on here. 

Please let me know if I can provide further useful information to stop this activity.

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