Consumer complaint received 2022-05-13
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: PA
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:
My husband and I are joint users on a Citi bank credit card. On XX/XX/2022 we XXXX XXXX  at XXXX XXXX and canceled the order within XXXX minutes after realizing the furniture would not fit. XXXX XXXX confirmed cancellation and the cancellation explicitly states that your card was not charged. 

The line of credit is in my husband 's name ( XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ) I am an authorized user on the account. 

Today is XX/XX/2022 and Citi Bank still has not returned the money to the card. They are listing it as pending and will not release the funds. The purchase was for about {$6000.00} and we can no longer use this credit card, or spend enough to obtain the advertised bonus, because the money will not be released from processing. The charge should have, and did not, go through as stated by XXXX XXXX  cancellation email. 

We called Citi bank customer service XXXX XXXX to try and resolve the issue and have been told some of the following : - " the only way you can get this money back is if you claim fraud. '' it was explained, on a recorded line, that this was not a fraudulent charge and this was just a cancellation that was no longer needed, however the call representative told me that I would need to claim fraud in order to get my money back. I am not comfortable fraudulently claiming fraud and do not believe this is a proper resolution from a bank - " you have enough money in the bank to cover your purchases this credit line is not necessary for you '' -- this was a response from a supervisor when we asked him to please assist us in getting this charge removed. He told us we are lucky to have a credit line and that citi bank does not owe us anything. This is blatant discrimination based on socio economic status -- which is explicitly advised against by the CFPB. I believe the supervisor was named XXXX and works in the XXXX XXXX possibly XXXX. 

- " the charge wasn't actually canceled '' this was a lie as we confirmed multiple times with XXXX XXXX We have been hung up on multiple times.. we are sitting here with our hands tied and can get no resolution. I have never been treating so inhumanely by a customer service center. Every person we speak to makes up a different response and leaves us with no solution. We have offer multiple times to set up a XXXX call with the merchant XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX and Citi bank XXXX We were told they will do no such thing and have nothing to do with this issue. 

We are often told someone will get back to us within XXXX hours but again hear no response. We have spoken to the bank about this issue multiple times over the past 2 weeks. 

I have multiple family members who have experienced such responses from Citi Bank as I have expressed here.. I really think this bank needs to be investigated into as it is unacceptable to be misleading consumers in this was and holding funds for such an extended period of time. I am looking for any kind of resolution from the CFPB. 

I would appreciate if my personal information could be kept private. Thanks. 

Please contact if you need any additional information.

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 non-monetary relief