Consumer complaint received 2022-04-08
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: CA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Problem accessing account

Complaint:
I dont know where to begin ; Cit has been aware of this problem for a month done nothing, I opened a Gold account that was supposed to have a dedicated manager : I was able to transfer funds & log on, & the account linked to my Citicards ( so there was no security issue ). Then I got locked out, for no reason, & Cit could not verify me at all, in any way, because it claimed it needed my new debit card, which is negligent per se since I didnt receive it for another ten days. There was no reason for this since Im already fully verified with Citi. The nightmare then escalated for 7 weeks. My alleged dedicated manager disappeared without leaving any notice on her phone, so I waste a week waiting for her to contact me. When I finally got the card, Citi could not verify me because it had to call me on its automated system & it wont recognize my voip phone. It gives you no other way to verify yourself. Ive dealt with a dozen agents over a month ( some of whom Ive IDS for & can provide, some of whom lied & refused to give any, all of whom lied ) l wasted an entire week of my life, been locked out of my checking account & all my citicards. Im put on hold for hours by Citis managers because they can not get through to their tech support. Ive lost whole days of work waiting on hold & still accomplishing nothing ( Ive records of all the calls & emails ). Ive been promised this would be addressed weeks ago, & now the people allegedly handling it, XXXX XXXX & XXXX XXXX, have not even returned emails for more than a month. Ive had to buy 3 flights because I can not get into my Thankyou account & use my points as I had been planning for months. Citi was aware I also would be away for weeks in XXXX & unable to get calls at home. Every aspect of their system from the start has been negligent & broken. Citi has lied to me repeatedly, not responded, & only after a month raised the vague option of going to a branch, which I couldnt do while away ( I told XXXX repeatedly I would be ). It has thereafter refused to address ANY questions ; it will not verify in any way how I can restore access, address whether I need to go into a branch, & has only sent cut & paste responses insanely telling me to change my password. I believe theyve showed criminal animus & recalcitrance throughout ; Ive had no access to my checking or any credit card accounts for XXXX weeks. In terms of their response, I updated my phone number only at the direct instruction of their agent. It is beyond belief for them to tell me yet again If you have not done so, please create a new User ID using your ATM card ending in XXXX. During the process of the registration, you may be once again prompted to do the OTP or you can enter your ATM PIN since OTP can not be received. I went through this process for entire days, & their negligent system will not verify me by phone whether I use an ATM #, my old credit card log ins, or speak agents ; their agents have explicitly acknowledged, after keeping me on hold for hours ( when not disconnecting me ) that their phone system can not verify me no matter what I or they do. Ive also yet to receive any explanation for why their system allowed me access to my account the first days, then suddenly cut me off for no reason ( even under their own pretexts, they were either objectively negligent in first allowing access or objectively negligent in then removing it. None of the 10+ agents allegedly handling the matter have responded to dozens of emails asking them to follow up on their misrepresentations or specify how I can restore access : there is absolutely nothing confidential in those emails, as they address only procedures, not any specifics related to my account. I have contacted Citi at least 50 times over seven weeks and gotten no actual information or any resolution. I am resending the explicit questions Citi has refused to answer for XXXX weeks : Let me know if the only way I can apparently restore my access is by going into a branch & the first date I can close my account without losing the promotion.

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