Consumer complaint received 2020-08-16
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: MA
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:
I wish to report fraudulent and unfair business practices by the credit card operation at CitiBank. They are cheating customers, in violation of law, by how they handle disputes and credit refunds. 

Basically, when a customer disputes a charge, they open a sham investigation and post a " conditional credit '' for the charged amount. The customer may spend this credit on charges but may not withdraw it in cash. The account gets frozen so that even other, unrelated credit balances may not be withdrawn. Then CitiCards does nothing while keeping the dispute open for 90 days or more. Sometimes, as in my case, much longer. Even when the merchant voluntarily resolves the dispute by posting a refund, still they keep the dispute open and hold the customers money. Below I give two examples. 

On XX/XX/2020, I charged {$16000.00} to XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ( the merchant ) for a cruise. I paid CitiCards for that charge, in full and in cash, on XX/XX/XXXX. About a week later, the merchant cancelled that cruise. Immediately I disputed the charge ( XXXX ). CitiBank waited three weeks, finally opened the dispute on XX/XX/XXXX, and posted a conditional credit of {$16000.00} to my account. 

At that point, my account had a credit balance of {$16000.00}. ( The early payment I made, plus the conditional credit, less the original charge. ) The merchant told me, via email, that they issued a full refund of my money on XX/XX/XXXX. So, as of XX/XX/XXXX, the dispute should have been resolved in my favor, since the merchant agreed, and I should have promptly gotten back my {$16000.00} early payment which the merchant had refunded. 

Instead, Citi kept the dispute open, failed to post the merchant refund, and held my early payment of {$16000.00}. I contacted them repeatedly, via phone and chat, asking for a refund of my early payment. Each time, they said that they would promptly send it ; however, it never got sent. As of today, ten weeks after the merchant refunded my money, CitiCards still holds my {$16000.00} early payment and refuses to return it. 
It seems that the policy, at Citi, is to keep every dispute open for at least 90 days, even if the merchant issues a full refund in the meanwhile. Also, they will make no refund of an unbilled early payment while any dispute is open. 

In a second incident on the same date my wife, XXXX XXXX XXXX, charged {$35000.00} to the same merchant on her separate CitiBank credit card. She, too, made an early payment of {$35000.00} and later disputed the charge. Citi notified her on XX/XX/XXXX that the merchant had posted a refund for the full amount ( a month earlier ) and her dispute was therefore closed. CitiCards kept the dispute open, even after the merchant refunded all money, and to this day, ten weeks later, CitiBank is still holding the {$35000.00} early payment, refusing to return it despite repeated requests. 

When a customer disputes a charge, and the credit card company issues a conditional credit, that credit offsets the charge and brings the net balance to zero. This is not what happened here. We prepaid the charged amount before disputing the charges. Since early XXXX, our accounts have had a combined credit balance of {$51000.00} owing to early payment of the disputed charges. This is the money that CitiCards has refused to refund. It is money that we never owed and never got billed for. 

As of today, XX/XX/2020, CitiCards still owes us {$51000.00} that we sent them early last XXXX, even though all disputes have been resolved ( in our favor ) and the merchant has long since refunded the money to CitiBank ( on XX/XX/XXXX ). 

Admittedly there would have been no problem or issue if we had not made an early payment. Even so, CitiBank has no right to keep our early payment for charges that were never billed to us and that have long since been refunded by the merchant. 

I can only hope that CitiBank will refund the {$51000.00} they owe us at some point. I hope, also, that you will shut down their fraudulent credit card operation so others will not be cheated as we were.

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