Consumer complaint received 2019-03-04
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: MN
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Fees or interest
Sub-issue: Charged too much interest

Complaint:
In approximately XX/XX/XXXX -XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX  ran a TV commercial offering a credit card with " prime rate for life. '' That was roughly 25 years ago when I applied for and got their credit card with the prime rate interest rate on the card. The XXXX credit card company went through several transitions of different owners and now Citi appears to own the account. 

At some point along the way ( perhaps 15 years ago? ), the then current owner of the credit card company ( perhaps XXXX XXXX XXXX ) informed me that they were going to change ( increase ) my interest rate. I immediately called to inform them that the increase was unacceptable because I was promised " prime rate for life. '' Their response was to instruct me that I should not make another charge on the credit card, then if making no additional charges on the credit card, they told me that I would be able to retain the agreement of " prime rate for life. '' They further informed me that if I did make a charge to the credit card, then that would signify my acceptance of the new terms and result in a change of my interest rate. 

I responded telling the credit card company that I would not make another charge on this account so that my interest rate would remain " Prime Rate for Life. '' I then cut up my credit card and never made another charge to the account. So I fully expect that all of the charges on my account should have been remained under the original " prime rate for life '' agreement. 

Sometime along the way, I put my card on autopay and then did not look at my statement for years upon years. Recently, this year, in XX/XX/XXXX I looked at my statement had could see that I was being charged a rate much higher rate than prime rate. I called the phone number on the statement and spoke with several people about the problem. Their initial stance was to try to obfuscate. When I remained firm and demanded to break the issue down to eliminate the obfuscation, they then told me that they would have to research the issue and that they would send me a response via USPS mail. I asked if it were possible to get their response via phone or email, and they told me that, " no, their response was required to be sent by postal mail. '' I received their response yesterday in the postal mail. Their response states, " Thank you for contacting our Customer Service Team. 

Please provide documentation that you were offered the Prime Rate on  your account. 

If you have any other questions call ... '' This seems to me to be another attempt to thwart my efforts to get a fair and reasonable response. I do not have any documentation from 25 years ago when setting up this credit card account. Perhaps they should show me documents that reflect whether I owe them anything at all? 

I would request that the company show me the records stating that I in fact have prime rate for life. If they can not do that, then I would like to ask the company to prove that I owe anything at all.

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