Consumer complaint received 2020-07-02
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: NY
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: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
To Whom It May Concern, This complaint is regarding City Bank Unfair Disputing Process outcome regarding a fraud transaction in my account. Recently, I had  attempted to complete a business deal of purchasing a tow truck with XXXX XXXX, a auto repair business service in order to purchase a tow truck through an auction for {$16000.00}. The alleged company has completed several monetary transaction through multiple credit cards I own, in order to finalize the delivery of the truck. The transactions on my credit cards for the truck purchase were as follows : {$4600.00} on XXXX  credit card, {$9700.00} on XXXX XXXX credit card, {$2200.00} with cash. Furthermore, additional amounts were charged for repair purchases claimed by the merchant for {$7900.00} which was charged on my Citi card. The company also managed to further claim money from us for alleged inspection cost for {$600.00}. We suspected a fraudulent behavior from the agency and attempted to claim chargeback from all our credit card companies with proper documentation. While XXXX XXXX  and XXXX XXXX took a fair action after complete review of our evident documentations, Citibank provided a vague dispute resolution that favored the merchant and accepted their fraudulent and forged documentations over our legitimate documentations. As per Citibank, the Merchant claimed that they have purchased and supposedly delivered a XXXX XXXX for {$7900.00} whereas, XXXX XXXX was purchased using a Cashier Check from me of {$18000.00}. Furthermore, The Merchant provided an unverified fake purchase invoice for the purchase of this vehicle by XXXX XXXX XXXX which is not affiliated or owned by me. Additionally, The date on the invoice for the purchase of XXXX XXXX is inaccurate as it states the purchase invoice to have taken place on XX/XX/XXXX whereas my Citicard was charged on XX/XX/XXXX. It is essentially not possible for a charge to occur 2 weeks after the purchase invoice was generated. Moreover, they have also attached another fake counterfeit invoice claiming repair conducted on the purchased XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX which was supposedly bought on XX/XX/XXXX. As per our basic sense, it is not possible to conduct repair on a vehicle before it is purchased. The Merchant have conducted multiple attempts to commit fraud and essentially claimed money for the wrong product with inaccurate invoices listing inaccurate dates and buyer informations through generating counterfeit documentations as the {$7900.00} was used for supposed tow truck repair and claimed for XXXX XXXX Purchase. Citibank have supported the fraud committed by the company by refusing to acknowledge the documentation and several attempts at providing evidence and informed us they are not able to coerce the fraudulent merchant in returning our money and furthermore, have informed us of accepting the unverified documents of Merchant that claims to contain my signature with no visible proof of the claimed signature by me. Citibank have severely violated the Consumer Protection Law and the Consumer Rights under the Federal Consumer Credit Protection Act and we would kindly request you to take action in order to protect vulnerable victims of fraudulent transaction for customers like me and prevent an attempt to collect an ineligible debt from us through a severe consumer right violation.

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