Consumer complaint received 2021-12-15
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: NY
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
I was a victim of a XXXX fraud scam done to my XXXX XXXX accounts, including the trust account of my XXXX XXXX XXXX mother. {$19000.00} was robbed from my accounts in 13 XXXX transactions. The fraudulent XXXX payments all went to the same person : XXXX XXXX. I did not authorize any one of those payments, they took about XXXX out of my checking plus overdraft protection -- which of course I also did not authorize! ) According to XXXX XXXX XXXX  needs to replenish these funds. Instead, they have stonewalled me and refused to replenish any funds!! Not one single person I spoke to so far in Citibank disputes or fraud was familiar with XXXX fraud scams!! ( By the way, I did not give my passcode or ID ) The XXXX fraud scam is documented in many articles such as this : https : XXXX According to XXXX XXXX and confirmed by the CFPB, Citibank must replenish or return these funds to me. https : //www.consumerfinance.gov/compliance/compliance-resources/deposit-accounts-resources/electronic-fund-transfers/electronic-fund-transfers-faqs/ Instead, they denied my request and stonewalled me again and again. ( Though the last case, for XXXX, is still in process ) I was faced with endless obstacles, and my cases were denied! Details below, and our appeal is downloaded in the next section -- but as of now, I and my mother were frauded out of a huge amount of money and Citi has not been supportive at all -- much less fulfilling their obligation to review the case carefully and to replenish our funds as per XXXX XXXX! 


Here are the case numbers : XXXX 2 transactions for {$5000.00}. 

XXXX XXXX transactions for {$9900.00} XXXX XXXX transactions for {$4500.00} The first fraud happened on XX/XX/21. The second, on XX/XX/21. I immediately called the fraud department when I realized what happened and have spent countless hours being led in circles getting nowhere. No one seemed to comprehend the gravity of this experience. No one cared enough to review the details carefully enough with me. Sound quality was terrible on many of the calls and I had to keep asking people to repeat themselves. I kept getting sent to different departments, and then was told that the last person sent me to the wrong department. My family was with me and heard all of this and will corroborate as I had the calls on speaker. 


Finally, I was informed that 2 of my cases were denied because of " lack of credibility and " lack of information. '' Somehow, in addition to this, {$5000.00} worth of lost money that I had reported was never investigated!! It was only when I called and finally spoke with someone helpful that it was recognized that they had not even reported or investigated XXXX of my stolen money. 

I, my mother, my sister and our parents ' trust accounts have been with Citibank for many many years. Personally it's been XXXX years for me and probably as many for my sister and my parents. We have a wonderful relationship with the staff and the branch manager of our local XXXX XXXX New York branch. They know my family very well and they will vouch for all of us I am sure. To be treated in this way after such a loyal relationship is just absolutely devastating. 

In addition, the level of customer service and support that I received was incredibly poor. And meanwhile, nobody even contacted me out of concern because such a huge amount of money was lost nor did Citibank in good faith offered to replenish any of it upfront until the dispute was completed! Almost half of that money was from the trust of my XXXX mother. A XXXX XXXXr and someone who is beloved in our local branch and our community. 

Here is what happened when I was robbed by the fraudster : On XX/XX/XXXX and again on XX/XX/XXXX I received phone calls-ostensibly from Citibank Fraud XXXX This was incredibly sophisticated. Somehow they had hijacked the actual number of Citibank fraud because when I called the number back I actually was connected to Citibank fraud!! They asked me if I made a purchase of XXXX something in XXXX in person at a XXXX. I said no. By calling them back and really getting Citi fraud, and then seeing a text generated from Citi, I decided to believe him, though I gave out no PW or Username. 
. 
The person who called me kept me on the phone for a long time, as he said that he was checking to make sure that there was no other fraud. There was one call on XX/XX/XXXX, and during that call I got this email from Citibank. This is when they changed my password without my realizing : During these calls, and only during the minutes of these calls, all of my and my mother 's money was taken out of all of our accounts. I'm hypothesizing that they were only able to steal this money while they were on the phone with me, but somehow they had hijacked Citibank 's phone # and spoofed an actual text to me saying exactly what they told me it would say. I believe they transferred money from all my accounts to my checking account and then drained my money using my XXXX account. Then they went to the other checking account ( my mom 's trust checking account ) and switched my XXXX account to come from there. And then they drained that account, at least as far as I can tell. 

I did not give out my password or other key identifying information There were more details as well which no one was interested enough to document. When I reported this, I asked that an investigator reach out to me, because I wanted to explain those details. I still have not gotten to explain them to anybody. I expected this {$19000.00} to be taken very seriously. It was not. 
I did get one voice mail from Citibank asking me to call. Of course I called immediately but I was routed to different numbers for almost 2 hours and finally was disconnected without getting any clear information at all. I have witnesses who were with me during that entire time. 

Meanwhile, we have wasted many, many hours on the phone, getting nowhere. We have submitted an appeal. Thank god we have the wherewithal to take these steps, if we didn't this kind of loss could devastate a family. 

Citibank is trying in every way to get out of paying this. They must be held accountable and I want to report this so that they don't do the same thing to other Citi clients. 

Under " Attach documents '', I attached my appeal to Citibank with copies of the bank notices which occurred during the scam. No response yet. 

IMPORTANT : in the next section where you ask for account number, I gave my checking account that was scammed. That account is currently frozen by Citibank. They gave me a new account, but no scam occurred with the new account. 

Also, there were TWO accounts that were robbed. There was only space for one account number. The other account that was scammed was 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 explanation