Consumer complaint received 2016-03-24
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: CA
Product: Credit card
Issue: Closing/Cancelling account

Complaint:
My husband and I have had a credit card with Citibank since XXXX. We pay our credit cards off in full every month and have no missed payments. We 're great customers of Citibank. 

In XXXX XXXX, they contacted us to say that the cards we have on that account needed to be upgraded to chip cards. We agreed. Unbeknownst to us, they closed our account and opened a new account on XXXX XXXX XXXX with these new cards. We did n't ask for that and that was never explained to us. 

This severely impacted our credit score. That credit card was the longest standing card we had and a key component of your credit score is " age of credit history '' where the average length of time of each of your accounts is tallied. With that account closed by Citibank, that dinged our credit history and our scores fell. 

We are trying to buy a house and this is a huge issue for us. The better your credit score, the better the loan you can get. 

We have spent the better part of the last 18 months trying to get Citibank to correct this mistake. Every time we call and tell the story all over again, which I 've done 4 times now, they assure me it 's all fixed and in 30 days that information will be with XXXX and XXXX and it will all be fixed. 

Then every time, I wait the 30 or so days and our scores do n't change. I call XXXX and XXXX and they assure me they have the latest information and that Citibank have n't corrected it. 

I call Citibank and tell the story all over again and so it goes for 18 months now. The levels of sheer incompetence are staggering. 

Then yesterday, my credit card gets denied at a store. This is the account that they opened with the new chip credit cards that started this whole mess. I call Citibank and they tell me that the account has been closed at my request. 

I absolutely blew my stack. 

I never requested the account to be closed and neither did my husband ; not on a call or in writing. The lady I speak to tells me that there 's a note to say that I requested this account closed on my last call. Which of course, I did n't do. 

This will be reported to the credit bureau at the end of this month. This will send our credit scores down further. Citibank can make a request to reopen the account but in order to do that, they have to do a hard pull from the credit bureau. This also sends my credit score down further. 

I ask to speak to a manager who tells me that the account was not closed at my request as the first operator told me, but they they closed it as part of trying to fix the original problem. 

So here are my options as of today : 1. Have them attempt to reopen the account with a hard pull and if it 's approved, my credit score takes a hit but at least the account is still operational. 
2. Have them attempt to reopen the account with a hard pull and if it 's denied, we take a hit for the pull and also the account being closed. 

Both are bad for us and neither fix the original problem of getting Citibank to correct their original mistake of closing our XXXX account. 

So, through absolutely no fault of mine or my husband 's, Citibank has cost us the chance of buying a house for the last 18 months because of their continuing ineptitude. They are unable to fix the original problem despite repeated assurances that it 's all been corrected. And now they 've plunged us into an even deeper hole by closing the account that wrecked our credit score in the first place. 

And all they ever do is apologize for the inconvenience. This is not an inconvenience. An inconvenience is getting caught in the rain without an umbrella or waiting 10 minutes for an XXXX. 

This is a catastrophic series of ineptitude and unprofessionalism that has wrecked the financial health of two loyal customers for the last 2 years with no end in sight. 

Please make them fix this and pay for their mistakes because I ca n't get them to.

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