Consumer complaint received 2016-12-10
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: TX
Product: Credit card
Issue: Other

Complaint:
I have been in collections on a credit card for a very long time for Citibank, N.A., Citi AAdvantage World Mastercard I was already setup on a payment plan with the first company that collections were passed off to : XXXX XXXX XXXX , XXXX, XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX, XXXX XXXX XXXX I have been making payments to them for over a year via Direct withdrawals from my checking account, through several 6 mth agreements. 

Now this last month I got a call from a new collections company : XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX XXXX the day after XXXX took out a withdrawal, asking me to make arrangements for payment and offering a settlement. I negotiated a settlement with them for {$1000.00} and asked them for a letter stating that the settlement would close the account paid in full ( to ensure I would not hear from another company later on for the remainder of the balance ) They faxed over the letter. I also asked for a letter stating that they would remove this account from the credit history on my credit reports. They stated that they were not in control of this and I would have to contact the credit owner, CITIbank, and gave me the number. 

I contacted Citibank and talked to an individual " XXXX '' I think, that stated that Citi does not do that, ever. I stated that that is false and it is done all the time and even documented on several occurrences on the internet with names and tracking of the companies involved, and even recommendations from attorneys, that I request it before settling anything, hence the request. He stated that that is false and untrue. 

I told him he was wrong and asked to speak to his supervisor. He asked me to hold while he checked on availability for his supervisor. After a couple of mins he came back and stated that his supervisor was busy but that she would call me back, then proceeded to tell me that after I settled or paid off the loan that then I could request in writing that CITI remove the credit history from my reports and that is how they handle that. I stated that that letter would be a waste of time because if I 've already paid off the account or settled, then there is no leverage reason why CITI would negotiate to do this, hence the advice online from attorneys that you get it in writing up front, because even when you have that, many times you are forced to threaten to take them to court just to get them to follow through on what you already have in writing. 

After remaining on hold several times with several different people at the call center who could n't pass me on to a supervisor because they were too busy and supposedly would call me back and never did. I gave up. 

The next day I got a call from XXXX stating that they could no longer settle with me because CITI had called the account back and I got a call from XXXX asking me to setup a payment plan for the same account with a different amount. Keep in mind, I still have a documented withdrawal setup to come out on XX/XX/2016 with the same company. 

So now, not only have I not only been paying for a long time, on time, every time payments for the account in question, and the debt being passed off to another company to attempt collections at the same time, but I 'm being called in an attempt to collect the debt in a 3rd way by the same company I am already paying. And they ca n't claim that they were just calling to negotiate continuing payments, because when I stated that I already have payments setup in the future for this account with her company, she did n't have a clue. " Oh, really, we just got this account today ''. 

I would say now this constitutes as harassment. I 'm now being hunted not only by XXXX different companies for the same debt, but XXXX of those companies is attempting it twice through different people when payments are already established and agreed upon.

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