Consumer complaint received 2017-10-12
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: AZ
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:
I purchased tickets with XXXX in the amount of {$10000.00} in XXXX, during this process I felt mislead due to the lack of terms disclosure of the refund policy. I was unable to attend the event after I was refused a refund, I tried re-selling the tickets on their website, but that feature also did not work. After numerous phone calls and emails back and forth with XXXX support ranging from refund discussion and website issues I ended up filing a dispute through my credit card Citi Cards, two disputes ended up being filed. 

I called an Citi Card customer agent who was at a call center in XXXX who posted the dispute for me, I was unaware to the type of dispute he filed and I was not informed that he was posting it as fraud, so that dispute went to their fraud investigations department. A day or so later I checked their website and noticed there was no update or no dispute filed so I filed a dispute online as well through citicards.com. I entered a dispute type of " Not as described or defective merchandise ''. On XXXX XXXX XXXX had received the fraud dispute, they did not contest the dispute and accepted the chargeback. They said usually the merchant has 3 days to respond with a denial, but XXXX just accepted the chargeback. 

Citi Cards had withdrawn the funds into a holding account as they informed me and that is where the funds are at this point for the past two months. For the past two months Citi Cards has been shuffling me between their dispute department and their investigations department, each department would blame the other department stating for example ; the fraud investigations department had closed the chargeback dispute case and handed the case over back to the disputes department. The dispute department would say it 's up to the fraud investigations department to provide further details, as far as the disputes department was concerned the case was already resolved. I 've had dozens upon dozens of calls, hours upon hours of calls to call centers here in the United States and XXXX with Customer Service, Dispute and Investigations representatives and supervisors. The last conversation with one of their supervisors in the dispute department I was informed that the funds will stay in a holding account for 90 days and afterwards Citi Cards will force the funds back to XXXX which is XXXXXXXX XXXX  merchant bank. The supervisor told me that I need to reach out to XXXX and have their bank request the funds for the dispute and have them refund me the money. The supervisor told me the reason they will not refund me the dispute is because it was put in as fraud and it is not fraud, so therefore the merchant XXXX is entitled to the funds according to Citi Cards. 

However XXXX had already canceled my tickets the minute they saw the dispute and resold them for the event. I had never taken possession of the tickets, I never went to the event and on top of that, XXXX agrees that I am entitled to the refund, but ironically my own credit card does not believe so. 

Finally on XXXX XXXX, XXXX from the Citi Cards Executive department called me to inform me that she 's looking into my case and is going to help me. It 's been nearly a week and I have not heard anything from Citi Cards that they 're even working on my case. I called XXXX from XXXX chargeback department and gave her XXXX 's contact information so they can get in touch and have this issue resolved. 

What can I say, I am numb at this point from all this back and fourth chaos. Citi Cards has been extremely difficult to work with, it is their agent who put the dispute through as fraud. They are not willing to own up to their mistake and make correct this matter. They will not even pickup the phone and call XXXX chargeback department. All this leads me to believe there is some serious abuse going on here, I honestly think they want to keep the funds and 90 days is some sort of time table that legally enables them to keep the funds. 

Attached I have a screenshot from XXXX demonstrating that the funds were removed from their account by Citi Cards. I also have an email screenshot showing a confirmation from XXXX for the refund. I also have a screenshot that shows XXXX had canceled the tickets in the website user account. And also a pdf receipt proof of purchase.

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