Consumer complaint received 2016-10-15
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: OH
Product: Credit card
Issue: Credit card protection / Debt protection

Complaint:
I signed up for a best buy store credit card in XXXX of XXXX, I have recently discovered that I have been charged for a " Debt Cancellation '' on the card for the last 8 years with no knowledge of ever signing up for the product. The fee is charged and some type of percentage based on the current balance of the card. On the statements I checked it does n't even appear they disclose that the service is active unless the card has a XXXX balance or if its the year end/beginning year statement. Otherwise the only way to know it is active is the line item that shows its been charged. Best Buy/Citi Bank 's website also does not disclose that the service is active unless you see the line item of it being charged in the recent activity. The fee has been small enough that it can be easily mistaken as an interest charge. How I noticed the fee recently was when I knew I should not be charged any interest and yet my balance had gone up by {$25.00}. 

When I called to explain to the debt protection service on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX that I never would have signed up for this service and this was a mistake the customer service agent XXXX explained that I had signed up for the service at the time the card was taken out. That he also would also submit a request that could take up to 30 days to be reviewed and cancel the debt protection. I do not believe I signed up for these services so I called Best Buy 's customer service team for the credit card to get a copy of my original application to see if I had actually signed up for the product. The first representative XXXX transferred me to someone in their Account Open team and they assured me that they would look it up, and then I got hung up on/disconnected. So I called back and spoke with a second representative name XXXX who reassured me that they would send it out via mail and it would take 7-10 business days. I also emailed to their customer service team on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX again asking for a copy of my application as the document that I received online from them was not my application, but some kind of welcome letter. They also said once I explained that was not my application that they would send it out and it would take the same amount of time. I waited the designated time frame for the application and when nothing was received I called back and spoke with a escalation team member XXXX who stated he works for Citi Bank and they would not have a copy of the application due to them acquiring the book of business from another bank. I highly disagree with this as I also work for a financial institution and we have acquired financial companies before and we received quite a bit of documentation for the clients we received from the book of business. 

Today I received a letter from Best Buy stating that they have refunded {$51.00} from the last three months due to me being a valued customer. This fee being charged on the account for the last 8 years with a balance averaging roughly around {$800.00} a month, the total fees would be in the XXXX of dollars for something I never signed up for. I calculated based off all the statements that were available to me at the time, roughly a year and a half, that they had charged me {$140.00} for this service.

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 monetary relief