Consumer complaint received 2016-05-04
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: MD
Product: Credit card
Issue: Billing disputes

Complaint:
My concerns involve my Citibank credit card. When I was attempting to make a regular, smaller payment online, somehow, a payment for the entire balance of my credit card was processed and then deducted from my checking account. I have been unable to successfully request and obtain a refund because my checking account bank denied the payment due to insufficient funds and will not allow the transaction to be processed because of the high amount. ( Therefore, Citibank can not issue me a refund because they have not received payment ). Instead, Citibank keeps attempting to process the full balance, despite me having put Citibank on notice that this transaction is an error. I have been unable to get the issue resolved after a week and several hours on the phone with multiple departments within both banks. I have even had both Citibank and my checking account bank on the line simultaneously. In the end, I was told that Citibank no longer had control over the transaction and could not stop it ; I must wait until Citbank stops trying to process the payment. I was informed that this could be " three or four '' times ; the answer changed depending on the representative. No one with Citibank could tell me if it would be 3 or 4 times, and what policy dictated how many times it would be attempted. However, waiting until they stop attempting the transaction and waiting for Citibank to follow their refund request process leaves me unable to access any other funds in my account ( including my federal income tax refund and my biweekly paycheck ) and, therefore, unable to pay mortgage and other necessary bills. This also means that my checking account has continued to assess a series of fees ( insufficient funds and return payment ) because of Citibank 's multiple attempts to take the money out of my account. Citibank informed me that they could not/would not reimburse any of those fees, despite them being a result of their inability to stop the process. The only option left is to attempt a stop payment with the checking account bank ( which can only be done if the account is not overdrawn and is an additional fee ) and file a dispute with my checking account bank. As an attorney myself, while I understand the process that was explained to me multiple times, what I can not understand is how there is no policy, procedure or other mechanism in place with the bank to prevent these erroneous transactions and rectify it without the consumer needing to be assessed multiple fees and constantly get updates in the process, taking on the burden in what is essentially a dispute between XXXX large banking companies. Additionally, before processing a transaction for the entire credit card balance, there was no " alert '' to me, as the consumer, to confirm and clarify that the full balance was being paid. In fact, despite the fact that the payment was done on XXXX XXXX, 2016, it was not until XXXX XXXX, 2016 that I received an email confirming the transaction ( which was after I spoke to a representative about the error on XXXX XXXX, 2016 ) Normally, when I make my payments to Citibank, I receive confirmation of the transaction within one business day. Had this confirmation for the XXXX XXXX transaction been sent on a similar timeline as my previous transactions with Citibank, I would have likely caught the error and could have rectified it immediately. To clarify, I am not referring to when the payment posted, as I understand this can take approximately 2 business days. I am referring to just an email confirmation. This is very troubling that I did not receive Citibank 's confirmation for the transaction until AFTER I already reported it to their Customer Service Department, back-dated three ( 3 ) days earlier -- my original payment date.

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