Consumer complaint received 2016-10-21
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: CA
Product: Credit card
Issue: Credit card protection / Debt protection

Complaint:
I opened a secondary credit card account with Home Depot/City visa, to be used by my trusted contractor, along with a XXXX credit card, for my house repairs. I set them both to be paid in full every month. The first 3 months, I had to go inside the store to make payments in person, since their system failed to activate for automatic payments. Later on, the automatic payments took effect. The charges were paid my XXXX checking account ( records attached ). Some of the first payments show that I had credit balances. The charges were very similar each month, so I made sure that I always had enough money in the bank to cover them every month. Later, because I was receiving too much of paper, so I decided to switch to a paperless account. Somehow, about the same time, and WITHOUT MY AUTHORIZATION OR KNOWLEDGE, I got switched to a minimum monthly payments only account! I started receiving ONE SHEET of paper instead of paperless, stating that " My account will be deducted the payment I authorized shown below or if less, the BALANCE DUE on the account '' The charges still looked similar to the previous ones, so I believed that I was making the IN FULL monthly payments I authorized, since I had never received or saw any statements or signs of accumulation of debt or finance charges or anything else in that one piece of paper I was receiving every month, or in any other ways of communication! The representatives argue that the statements were sent electronically and it was my responsibility to check for them ; which is unreasonable because if they were sent, they went directly to my junk mail, so I had no idea or suspicion, I learned later, that it happened because of the much advertising, they went directly to junk mail. Once construction on our house finished after almost 2 years, I called to cancel the account, and to my shock, their agent informed of a balance, over {$4000.00}! Which I assumed it was a fraud! After reviewing all the agent understood, apologized for the situation, she waved 6 months of finance charges, as her limitation. After I offered to make an extra effort to somehow come up with the money to pay for all the purchases only ASAP. I have been unemployed for a long while, so this means making an even bigger effort for my family and I right after construction. She guided me to call the escalation department hoping to get the extra charges removed. I have contacted many supervisors who apologized to me for the error, but reiterate being unable to remove any more.charges. I requested a settlement to pay for the purchase only in the account. They informed me that because " I made ALL PAYMENTS ON TIME '', I do not qualify for that either ''. I 'm a very responsible citizen with no credit problems ever. I have been a victim of their mistake and their lack of better communication to me as a customer. It 's obvious that their only form of communication was not efficient. Even though they were sending paper letters to me on a monthly basis, they never informed me of any balance carried over in 2 years! I have other paperless credit cards, I get from them a yearly paper statement, it is very helpful and efficient. I insist that I am being a very responsible person. I could had chosen to deny the charges, say I did n't make the purchases, or this is a fraud ; which in a way it 's true! I offered many times to pay for the actual purchases only, as long as they drop the more than {$800.00} in finance fees. I sent other payments to avoid the finance charges to grow. The balance now is {$3200.00}. Please help me make them understand that I 'm being victimized by them, and I need their help to bring this debt to a conclusion. This problem is overwhelming and is affecting my family and me a lot. 
Thank you in advance for your understanding and support! 
Sincerely, XXXX XXXX Thanks in advance for your understanding and support! 
Sincerely, XXXX XXXX.

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 monetary relief