Consumer complaint received 2020-01-06
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: IL
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:
On XX/XX/2019 I filed a dispute on my Citibank credit card against the vacation rental company, XXXX, for vacation rental in XXXX. When I arrived in XXXX, we determined that the owner misrepresented the property. XXXX has a 100 % guarantee for all of the properties it leases online. " If a guest contact VRBO.com within the first 12 hours and the property is sufficiently different from the add, XXXX will find you another property. '' I retained every correspondence I had over 3 months with the owners of the property, I contacted XXXX within the first 2 hours after arriving and never stayed in the first property one night. XXXX did charge my Citibank card an additional {$2900.00} for the second property I found and stayed in for the remaining time on my vacation. 

I filed the dispute 10 days after XXXX stated it would refund the money of the first property. I returned from my vacation on XX/XX/2019 and filed the complaint on the XX/XX/2019. Online, I could see that is that a conditional credit was issued. However, with I received my XXXX statement, it is very confusing. The transaction history of my statement does not correspond to what occurred on my account, which makes it very difficult to research and dispute. 
The XXXX statement lists two conditional credits on XX/XX/2019 for {$3900.00}. Further on XX/XX/2019, the statement states that Citibank issued a reversal in XX/XX/2019. This is not possible because I did not leave for my vacation until XX/XX/2019. Moreover, the bank also reversed both those credits. The bank issued a reversal on XX/XX/2019 ( per the statement ) and again at the end of this 33 day billing cycle. The date on the second reversal is XX/XX/2019 of date of the original charge, but not the actual date of the second reversal. Therefore, as far as the statements show, at the end of XXXX billing cycle, the bank reserved the charges twice without contacting me regarding the investigation. Further, the billing statements states the bank determined the charges where valid. I am not sure how that could be because XXXX received payment for the property I actually stayed. Therefore, at the end XXXX billing cycle there is a {$3900.00} charge on my card. 
In XXXX I provide the bank with all of the correspondence and copies of the guarantee. On XX/XX/2019, I notice that the charge was still on my bill so I contacted the dispute department. They stated that the resolved this issue and that it was a valid charge. I told the representative, I had not received notice of this, there was not a notice online in my account. The representative told me to provide additional information with I did on XX/XX/2019.

The XXXX statement shows that Citibank issued another conditional credit on XX/XX/2019. I received an online message on XX/XX/2019 stating Good news! Weve resolved this case in your favor and issued a permanent credit for {$3900.00}. However, when I received my XXXX statement, I did open it until almost the ended of XXXX almost XXXX because I was out of town. The XXXX statement that Citibank states, the on XX/XX/2019 the bank reversed the conditional credit, and never gave me the money back when I received the message of the permanent credit on XX/XX/2019. 

On the XXXX statement, which I did not receive until late XXXX, there is a note at the bottom stating that the issue is now resolved. That statement should have been on the XXXX statement. The issue was that my online account was reflecting something completely different from my actual statement. Moreover, my statements were inaccurate and misleading because the statements do not reflect my actual transaction history as it pertains to this dispute. 
I believed that Citibank has engaged in Deceptive practices as it pertains to this dispute and my credit card statements. It is deceptive how Citibank bank disclosed the account history in correctly for 4 months, which cause a lot of confusing for me. It was deceptive for the bank to issue dispute notification online with dates that do not correspond to the transaction history on the statement. But the most egregious deception is providing notice that I have a permeant credit only to find out six weeks later the bank reversed the charges without notice. The bank states that it determined the charge was valid but did not consider that XXXX received payment for the second vacation rental for which I stayed. I need help recovering the {$3900.00} plus interest of overpayment to XXXX. At the very least, I should not have pay XXXX  for both the {$3900.00} charge and the {$2900.00} charge.

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