Consumer complaint received 2020-10-14
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: CA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Banking errors

Complaint:
In summer of XXXX I received a personally addressed flyer from Citibank with a targeted offer promising a XXXX bonus for opening a new checking account. After some mauling over, I decided to opt for the {$500.00} tier and on XXXX XXXX I opened a checking & a savings account, transferred {$15000.00} to the latter, and established a direct deposit XXXX {$120.00} from a biweekly paycheck ). I checked on the bonus 60 days, then 6 months, then a year after opening the account, but the {$500.00} have never been deposited. 

I inquired about the bonus via chat on XXXX XXXX, from the webpage at XXXX showing my checking account. I explained the details to XXXX, the representative on my chat session, and he said it was a simple matter of finding the right code for the original promotion & raising an internal ticket to the appropriate department. Based on my description he did exactly that & advised that a response would be posted into my document mailbox on Citibank 's portal. When I went back to check on that, I found a letter explaining that I was not eligible for the particular promotion specified ( by XXXX, I assume ), because it was for accounts open between XXXX & XXXX of XXXX. XXXX obviously provided the wrong promotion code, as I would not have been sent in XXXX or XXXX a promotion starting in XXXX. 

To appeal the decision, I contacted the bank via the online chat on XXXX XXXX & exchanged messages with XXXX. After explaining the situation, I was directed to call a XXXX number, where I reached XXXX from the specialized promotion management team and asked to escalate when she said she could not reopen the case. I was transferred to XXXX, XXXX 's supervisor, who spent quite some time looking for a matching promo & raised a new ticket. Again, I was asked to expect a written response to be posted into my document mailbox on Citibank 's portal. Again, after a few days a letter posted there explained that my type of account was not eligible for that particular offer ( that XXXX found ). 

I contacted Citibank for the last time on XXXX XXXX via chat and was told by XXXX to call the same XXXX number I did the time before. Feeling like the protagonist of " XXXX XXXX '', I decided to raise this complaint instead. 

I seem to be stuck in a XXXX system that uses XXXX team to interact with customers and another to attempt to apply promotions the first team identifies. The first team understands the situation, but makes constant mistakes in picking the right promotion, while the latter has all the tools to validate the promotion, but stops at the first attempt based on the first team 's guess. It must be dozens of such promotions, as Citibank seems to be constantly running this type of promotion with a few details changing from XXXX to another and at this rate, with each interaction taking anywhere between XXXX to XXXX hours by the time I explain all the details, I have no hopes in ever getting this right. 

The last response indicates that to move this further I need to provide the original offer or the original promo code, neither of which I retained, never even dreaming that a reputable bank like Citibank could somehow make such a blatant mistake and, more importantly, would be so reluctant to correct it.

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