Consumer complaint received 2020-02-17
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: KS
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem when making payments
Sub-issue: Problem during payment process

Complaint:
I have the Best Buy Reward Zone Master Card issued by CitiBank. This card was closed in late XXXX by the credit issuer and I went to pay the full balance on XX/XX/XXXX on the website owned by CitiBank. 

I processed one payment and received one email confirmation for the full payment amount of {$440.00} -- no other emails were received from CitiBank. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I log into my checking account and see CitiBank has posted the same payment twice with different confirmation numbers. I checked my email to see only one confirm and then checked the CitiBank web portal to see TWO confirmations even though I only processed the payment. I contacted both my bank, XXXX XXXX, and the card issuer CitiBank to inform them of their error. The first agent I spoke with at CitiBank was unintelligent and told me " yep, we have the payment, it's all good! '' I insisted on speaking with a supervisor who then realized what happened and informed me of their " system error '' and they would issue a credit which would post back to my bank account in 3-4 days. Immediately after that call, because I did not trust CitiBank at this point, I also notified XXXX XXXX in the event the credit did not show up as promised. XXXX issued a " temporary courtesy credit while the matter was investigated until XX/XX/XXXX, '' this credit from XXXXXXXX XXXX  was posted to my account on XX/XX/XXXX. The credit from CitiBank did indeed post to my bank account refunding one of the two payments on XX/XX/XXXX. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I received an email correspondence from CitiBank stating they " couldn't process my payment. '' I logged into my account and see CitiBank had reversed BOTH payments -- now reflecting the card having a full balance of {$440.00}. 

I contacted CitiBank again only to become more frustrated because both agents insisted that all was fine with the account, XXXX had alerted them of the payment being returned as invalid, and they'd issued one refund so the full balance remain. I continued to tell CitiBank that was NOT correct, as the credit from XXXX was only a temporary courtesy credit and would not be valid once it reconciled that one payment was already credited back, as I'd informed XXXX XXXX that one payment ( and only one payment ) was authorized. The agent, XXXX with agent code XXXX, was incredibly rude and I asked to speak with her supervisor who also stated there was nothing more for CitiBank to do. The payments/reversals were as they should be and they could not offer any help. 

Not only would I not want to double pay a card that is closed, their system would likely have something that would alert the consumer that a payment is already pending for the SAME amount or not accept a double payment causing a negative balance on a credit card. 

As a consumer, I have spent more than an hour making more than 4 phone calls to try and resolve this ... all while CitiBank continues to collect a high interest rate daily. This behavior is abusive to consumers and there is no way I can reasonably avoid their acts of processing multiple payments and reversing them at their whim. 

I will not be processing another payment until I resolve the matter directly with XXXXXXXX XXXX and will no longer be contacting CitiBank expecting any help of any sort, as all their agents have done is cause further issues and increase my level of frustration.

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