Consumer complaint received 2017-06-13
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: CA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account status incorrect

Complaint:
I have been dealing with a fraud case on my Macys account for over a year and a half now. From the beginning Macys has proved to be completely incompetent in taking care of it. There has been so much stress surrounding this and I have gotten nowhere in dealing with them directly. I did not keep track of all the dates I called at the very beginning because I had no idea that I would need to. Luckily I have saved all correspondence, and started documenting everything pretty early on. The following is a timeline : XXXX/XXXX/XXXX : I received a letter from Macys stating that my credit limit had been decreased. This made no sense to me because I had only ever used the card 2 times since getting it and paid the balance immediately. It had been close to a year since I had used it last. I called the company and sure enough there were about {$800.00} worth of charges on the account on expensive items like coach purses, channel makeup, and name brand clothing. I stated that I did not make these charges, and I was given the phone number to start a fraud investigation. **I dont have the exact date but sometime in the beginning of XXXX XXXX I called the XXXX XXXX police department and filed a police report. XXXX/XXXX/XXXX : I received a letter from the fraud investigation department at Macys requesting that I complete the enclosed form. Aside from filing the police report, this was all I needed to do on my end for the fraud investigation. I completed the form and sent it back to Macys. **In the next couple months I started receiving multiple phone calls a day from Macys collections. I would call ( wait on hold for at least 15mins ) and explain that this is a fraud case and its under investigation. They would apologize and put a hold on the phone calls. I would have a temporary break from the calls, but after a week or so they would start again. I would then have to call and wait, and explain everything again. This happened at least 5 times. **After a couple months of hearing nothing from the fraud department, I called them to check the status of everything. I was told that it would be taken care of shortly and to give it a couple weeks. **I gave it a couple weeks with still no word from the fraud department, while still receiving daily phone calls from the collections department. XXXX/XXXX/XXXX : This is when I started documenting my phone calls. I called the fraud department, again, and was told that my case would be expedited, and to give it another month. XXXX/XXXX/XXXX : I received a letter in the mail from a collections agency, XXXX XXXX XXXX, requesting I pay the charges on my Macys account XXXX/XXXX/XXXX : I returned the letter to XXXX XXXX XXXX, stating that the charges are not mine. XXXX/XXXX/XXXX : I received in the mail a letter from Macys. It was the very same letter that was sent to me on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX asking me to complete the enclosed form to begin the fraud investigation. I called the fraud department and asked to speak to the supervisor. His name was XXXX, and he said he would expedite the case and it would take approximately 2 weeks to be taken care of. XXXX/XXXX/XXXX : I received the letter I had been waiting for, for 4 months! A letter from Macys fraud investigation department that stated the following ; We completed the investigation on your Macys Credit Card account. As a result, we removed the disputed charges and any related fees and interest charges from your account. And most importantly, We updated your dispute to a resolved status with the consumer reporting agencies listed below ( XXXX, XXXX, XXXX ) and the agencies were informed to update your credit report. Please allow them at least 60 days to revise their records. **Naturally, I was relieved and a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. A whole year went by without me ever really thinking about this again. It wasnt until I tried to apply for a travel credit card in early XXXX XXXX and got denied, that I found out that the letter Macys had sent was a complete lie. XXXX/XXXX/XXXX : I called Macys fraud department and spoke with XXXX. He was confused about the situation at first but after speaking with his supervisor, he said it looked like everything had been taken care of and resolved as fraud but the final step of closing the account and sending the update to the credit bureaus had never happened. He stated that he reopened the case and notated to contact the credit bureaus and updated them of the resolved status. **I also filed a dispute with XXXX at this time about this account. To which I later found out on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX after speaking with a representative at XXXX that Macys had responded to their dispute on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX stating that the charges should remain on my credit report. *This is the point where I start to question if this is even legal anymore. ** A couple months went by of me assuming that things had been taken care of after speaking with XXXX and filing the dispute with XXXX. It wasnt until XXXX XXXX, while trying to consolidate my student loans, I got denied because I had a charge off balance on my credit report from Macys, that I realized that nothing had been taken care of. So now, these fraudulent charges that were, according to Macys, cleared from my account and updated to a resolved status, are sitting on my credit report as a charge off balance. XXXX/XXXX/XXXX : I called XXXX fraud department and spoke with XXXX. She apologized for all of this, expedited my case with her supervisor, gave me my claims #, and told me it would take 7-14 business days to clear the balance and to check back on XXXX. XXXX/XXXX/XXXX : I called Macys fraud department and was told that on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX after my phone call, my information was forwarded to the credit bureaus and they were informed that the balance was not mine. XXXX/XXXX/XXXX : I called XXXX to confirm what Macys had told me the day before. They said that the information was still on my credit report and they had received nothing from Macys. She also told me that if I had the original letter from Macys updating my account to a resolved status I could send it directly to them and they could take care of it for me. ** When I got off the phone with her I realized that the account number I have relating to all the fraud correspondence with Macys ( a 12 digit number ) is different than the account number on my credit report ( a 16 digit number ). However, I have only ever had 1 account with Macys. XXXX/XXXX/XXXX : I called Macys customer service to ask about the account numbers and if I could receive something that showed that they were the same account. The lady from customer service didnt understand my question, so I asked to speak with a supervisor. She placed me on hold for approximately 30 minutes and returned to say that no one could find the supervisor and to call back in an hour. Instead, I called Macys fraud department again. I spoke with XXXX and updated her on my situation ; she was very apologetic and put me on hold while she got a hold of her supervisor. After about 10 minutes on hold, the call was disconnected. I called back immediately, and then spoke with XXXX. I updated her and she said she would try to find her supervisor, but no one knew where she was. She asked me if I would call back and I said no, I wanted to speak to the supervisor no matter how long I had to wait. For the next hour or so, I spoke with XXXX. She explained to me that the reason the account numbers were different was because of something called a legacy account. Apparently all the old 12-digit account numbers were switched to 16-digit account numbers when their operating system had changed, and the 2 different numbers represented the same account. In that case, it seemed simple to just ask for something in writing from them stating that the accounts were the same, as to prevent any confusion when submitting my documents to the credit bureaus. XXXX said anything in writing needed to go through their legal department first, but she could give me something that was already pre-written. She emailed me their standard mortgage letter that referenced both accounts. I was not pleased with this because the mortgage letter states that the account is under the investigation for fraud, and my investigation was suppose to have been resolved over a year ago. Again she stated this was the only documentation she could give me that showed that the accounts were the same and that as long as I had both letters it shouldnt be a problem. She then tried to get off the phone with me and I said I would still like to speak with a supervisor, because while I planned on taking care of things on my end, I still needed to ensure that they were taking care of things on their end. Her response to me was that since my account had been sitting untouched for so long, Citibank now owned it ( this was the first I had heard of this ). So it wasnt as simple of a process as it may seem and that getting the account back from Citibank would be like pulling teeth because it had to go through so many people, and it wasnt until they had it back that they could re-open it and clear the charges. Naturally, this response infuriated me. The reason my account has been sitting untouched for so long is because Macys informed me it was resolved and updated with the consumer reporting agencies, when in fact, that never happened. It was their negligence that put it there, so it should be their job to get it out. I then asked her why I was told 2 days earlier by someone in their office that my information had been forwarded to the credit bureaus when it clearly hadnt been, and if that was just a flat out lie. Her response, I dont know how to answer that. I was finally able to speak to the supervisor, XXXX XXXX. She apologized for everything and ensured that everything was in her hands now and would be worked on and taken care of. She said that she would speak to their legal department and get me the same letter that was sent to me on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX with the new and updated account number, and it would take 3-5 business days. In the mean time they were in the middle of the process of getting my account back from Citibank so they could clear the charges and close it and update it with the credit bureaus. She also gave me her direct phone number to really ensure me that she would be taking care of this personally. That evening I faxed over the original letter from Macys sent on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX, along with the mortgage letter sent to me that day, linking the accounts, and an explanation of the 2, to XXXX. XXXX/XXXX/XXXX : I received a letter from XXXX stating that the Macys charges had been deleted from my credit report, based on the information I sent them. ** I then realized this only applied to TransUnion and I would need to submit the same documents to the other credit bureaus. XXXX/XXXX/XXXX : As referenced earlier, I spoke with a representative from XXXX to file a dispute and submit my supporting documents. She opened up a new dispute case, but mentioned that they had already disputed this back in XXXX. At that time I had not provided my supporting documents, I didnt think I needed to. It was at this time I was told that Macys had responded to them on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX stating that the charges should remain on my credit report. I re-disputed it with XXXX and sent over the same documents I sent to XXXX. XXXX/XXXX/XXXX : I decided to call the supervisor from Macys fraud department, XXXX XXXX, that I had spoken with 2 weeks earlier to ask why Macys would have told the credit bureaus to keep the charges on my account, to get an update on what had been taking place the past couple of weeks to resolve this, and to follow up about the letter she was supposed to send to me after clearing it with the legal department with the correct account information. I called the number she had given me that she had stated was her direct line, and it was a number that had been disconnected. At this point, I realized that it would be of no benefit to communicate with Macys fraud department any further. Their practices seem extremely unethical and dont seem to be legal.

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 non-monetary relief