Consumer complaint received 2020-06-19
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: OH
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: Card was charged for something you did not purchase with the card

Complaint:
On approximately XX/XX/XXXX I noticed two unauthorized charges from XXXX on my BestBuy Credit Card for services which were not approved or authorized. These charges were as follows : {$22000.00} dated XX/XX/XXXX and {$2800.00} dated XX/XX/XXXX. I immediately reported this to BestBuy by filing a dispute for both of these charges. BestBuy Credit Services confirmed receipt of my disputes, indicated they would investigate the charges and had issued a credit to my account for the above referenced amounts ( which they did ). On XX/XX/XXXX I then received two letter in the mail from BestBuy Credit Services notifying me that they had completed their investigation and had determined that I was responsible for these charges! The letter indicated they based their decision on documentation obtained from XXXX " showing the services were provided ''. The letter included documentation from XXXX with screen shoots of a page of the company 's website which they indicated I visited to process my order and payment. I did no such thing, have never seen or visited this page and had only spoken to XXXX about the additional marketing services over the phone in an exploratory conversation. I did not accept their proposal, did not agree to move forward with the services, nor did I authorize the transaction. In addition, the amounts that were billed are almost double the costs XXXX had quoted when we discussed additional marketing opportunities with them. But again I did not accept their quote nor did I agree to move forward with the service, and most importantly AT NO TIME DID I AUTHORIZE XXXX TO BILL MY CARD. XXXX already had my card on file for other marketing I have been doing with them for years and apparently used the information they had on file for these additional unauthorized billing. XXXX also included screen shots of my agent profile which they allege to have setup as part of the marketing services. This was a free profile that is available to all licensed real estate agents, and one I setup as far back as XXXX. In my response to BestBuy Credit Services I provided a link to the page on XXXX 's website referencing the free profile with instructions on how to set this up. XXXX also provides a terms of service agreement which I have never seen, signed, or accepted in any fashion. They provided a Lead Report alleging that the leads generated were the result of the services they provided when in fact these leads were generated from our own listings and which we receive as a result of the other paid marketing we do with the company. This is indisputable as the additional unauthorized marketing XXXX has billed me for is zip code specific and would have only been for the XXXX zip code and the Lead Report includes leads from multiple zip codes. In addition, XXXX never provided any invoices or receipts for these billing either via mail or email, however, in their response to the complaint they submitted fraudulent billing statements without a billing address and in fact they referenced the document references no address but XXXX, OH XXXX as the city, state and zip code however the zip code for XXXX is either XXXX or XXXX and again this is fraudulent documentation manufactured to support their billings! I responded to BestBuy Credit Services as mentioned above and countering each element of XXXX 's response and reiterating that the services were neither provided nor authorized. I then received notification yesterday, XX/XX/XXXX that Best Buy had received my submission but " based on the review of the circumstances surrounding the charge, we have no recourse available to recover the funds ''. I responded last night with a fax and will be submitting a certified letter reiterating that these charges were never authorized and as such I do not acknowledge them and that they need to immediately send me a statement for any and all authorized charges and I will remit payment for these but will not remit payment for the unauthorized charges to XXXX for the {$2400.00} and {$2800.00} as well as any interest or fees associated with these fraudulent charges. I also advised that if they failed to remove these charges I would be filing a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission which I attempted to do but was directed to your offices. Again I never authorized this transaction and in spite of this my credit card provided is honoring this charge based on XXXX  claim that I visited a page on their website and clicked a button authorizing the charge, and has then provided fraudulent documentation in an effort to support the billings including screen shots from the page they allege I visited ( I assume the credit card companies have a way of tracking if a card is billed from a website transaction or dialed in by a company representative ), a screen shot of my free agent profile page I setup years ago, fraudulent billing statements which were never mailed or emailed to me, and lead reports which report leads generated from our own listings and provided to us as part of the paid marketing we do with XXXX which we did in fact authorize and continue to pay for. I will not remit payment for these unauthorized billing but will remit payment on the authorized billings once Best Buy Credit Services agrees to waive these false charges, and to report them as paid. I humbly request your assistance in resolving this matter!

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