Consumer complaint received 2021-11-22
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: MA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Unable to get your credit report or credit score
Sub-issue: Other problem getting your report or credit score

Complaint:
On XX/XX/2021 CitiCards XXXX. informed me of a reduction of a credit limit based on XXXX factors, a recent pull of my credit report and my XXXX ever late payment to them ( I simply thought I had paid this bill when I apparently had not ). Citi bank reduced my limit from {$4800.00} to {$1200.00} as a result of the missed payment. I was not served with a required notice of the late payment, nor was this payment attempted to be collected before they went to re-evaluating my account. This is an account that I have now maintained for over XXXX  years with stellar payment history. 

When I attempted contacting customer service initially to find out why they had done this, they read me the generated letter. I asked them for a copy of the report used, as the stated reason regarding reporting in their letter was : " Your credit report shows your balances on your revolving accounts are too high in relation to those credit lines. '' They claim their data was obtained by XXXX so I went and pulled my most recent XXXX report which is dated XX/XX/2021 ( The day before the notice ). My overall credit utilization is 21 %, of which XXXX accounts are greater than 50 %  utilized, XXXX being my revolving bills account ( A low limit card with another issuer ) and the other being a 0 % financing line through synchrony for a large purchase. So being that these are the facts, my contact to customer service switched from a why to can I get a copy of the report used in the underwriting decision on my account. 

The rep during my initial contact was unable to provide this, and claimed to have put in a complaint on my behalf. In the mean time, because my account was XXXX  days past due, without any legally required pre-empt on the attempt to collect the debt, the rep did proceed to attempt to confirm payment on my account. This had irked me. 

Being that customer service was unable to provide this to me while I was legally delinquent, I made another contact attempt on the following monday, with a request for an explanation. This too was fruitless, as they initially instructed me to file a credit reporting dispute. There is no reporting issue which I stressed, and asked to speak with a rep that can connect with the department that reviews credit limits. They provided me with a number to the customer service main line, which I called. Moving on after contacting customer service over the phone, I was directed to the credit limit increase/decrease department. However because my request was for an explanation of a decision, and not a request for an increase or a decrease, that rep was unable to help me. So they provided me with a number to contact ( XXXX ) due to the phone system not working right, which turns out to be for an unrelated third party monitoring company. 

At this point, I am fed up as all I want is a copy of the report used to come to a lending decision, as it my right under the FCRA. Citi 's letter nor their reps seem to be able to provide this to me, and I'm not going to waste time filing a credit reporting dispute for a non-related matter. I would like a copy of the report citi obtained to make a lending decision, so that I may review it for accuracy. I do not understand how my current card utilization played a factor in their decision and it seems like they came to this decision arbitrarily due to XXXX late payment. There is an option that they should have used for this payment, and that's called a late fee. 

This is bad business on their part.

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