Consumer complaint received 2016-11-17
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: VA
Product: Credit card
Issue: Billing disputes

Complaint:
My husband, XXXX, and I rented a car with XXXX from XXXX XXXX in XXXX, Massachusetts. XXXX made this reservation using XXXX ( XXXX ) number, and informed XXXX at that time that we would be using XXXX XXXX gift certificates to partially pay for our rental, in the amount of {$120.00}. In fact, we did n't order these gift certificates from XXXX until after we had confirmed with XXXX that we could use them, as we know the gift certificates come with terms and conditions. XXXX had ample opportunity at that time to tell us there would be a problem using our gift certificates, but failed to do so. 

On XXXX XXXX, when we arrived at the XXXX XXXX, the XXXX agent who had been manning the XXXX desk had already left for the day. He left our keys with a XXXX XXXX agent. We then called XXXX local number in XXXX and spoke with this XXXX agent ( I can only assume that he had forwarded calls to his cell phone ). We told that agent that we were leaving our XXXX gift certificates with the XXXX XXXX agent. He told us that he would " take care of it. '' Again, we were not told that there would be any problem using our XXXX gift certificates. We left on a morning ferry on Sunday, XXXX XXXX, and dropped our keys in the XXXX box, since their desk was not open. We were, needless to say, surprised when the charge came through for the entire amount of our rental, {$160.00}. 

As soon as we saw that charge on our credit card, we filed a {$120.00} dispute with Citibank. We waited until XXXX XXXX to get any response from Citibank. On that date, Citibank wrote us a letter with XXXX response enclosed. XXXX did not acknowledge the crux of our dispute at all in this letter, instead simply stating that the amount of our bill was {$160.00}. They did not even reference the {$120.00} XXXX gift certificates that they had received as payment. 

I strongly object to the idea that at this point I needed to provide further " evidence '' to Citibank to get them to respond reasonably. I was OVERcharged on this bill, and XXXX had gift certificates at its disposal to recover this {$120.00}. Recovering that {$120.00} should be XXXX problem, not mine. At this point, Citibank insisted that they needed " documentation proving [ I ] should have been billed an amount other than what the merchant posted to [ my ] account. '' On the telephone, one of Citibank 's agents suggested that I should have obtained a receipt showing that XXXX accepted my gift certificates. 

This is an entirely unreasonable request, and it 's not the way the world works. When you give gift certificates for payment, you do not receive a receipt. REGARDLESS, I spoke with the manager of XXXX in XXXX, MA and she asked me to e-mail her the gift certificates. When I spoke with this manager, it was on a 3-way call, with Citibank on the line. The purpose of this e-mail -- cc : ed to Citibank -- was to provide Citibank with the " receipt '' they were requesting. 

After all of this, today Citibank refuses to resolve this dispute in my favor. Their position is that I have not given them " documentation proving I should have been billed an amount other than what the merchant posted. '' All of this is a classic stonewalling tactic. It is clear to me that staff at Citibank have been given a narrow instruction in order to avoid looking at the actual facts of a situation to resolve them with any degree of judgment. This is a simple complaint, and I have gone above and beyond over 2-1/2 months to provide Citibank with everything they have asked, whether reasonable or not. It should not be this hard for consumers to recover money they are owed. I do n't understand why human beings are employed at Citibank when they do little other than repeat boilerplate verbiage and are not empowered to provide real help to their customers.

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