Consumer complaint received 2017-11-21
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: NY
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems
Sub-issue: Other problem

Complaint:
Citi attempted to post payment two additional times to an account with insufficient funds without ever notifying me of the initial rejection. The policy of making repeat attempts to post payment when it is initially rejected is nowhere stated in the Card Agreement. Customers are therefore forced to incur multiple fees and adverse effects on their credit report, without ever being notified by Citi that payment was rejected. The details of my specific case are as follows : On XXXX XXXX, 2017 Citi posted payment to bank account A. This account did not have sufficient funds to cover the payment. I had thought that I had changed automatic payment to my bank account B, which does have sufficient funds ; this was indeed my own oversight. My bank A rejected and returned the payment on XXXX XXXX. My bank A then sent me a letter to inform me of this, which I received on XXXX XXXX. 

In the meantime, Citi posted payment to my bank account A again on XXXX XXXX. This was done without Citi ever notifying me that my payment had been rejected. 

In the evening of XXXX XXXX, after I received the letter from my bank, I promptly logged onto my Citi Cards online account and attempted to pay, from my bank account B, the amount that had been posted for payment to bank account A. When I could notthe amount was registered as paid even though I knew from looking at my bank account A online that it had been rejectedI changed my primary bank account to bank account B. In addition, I called Citi Cards to attempt to pay over the phone. When I could not pay over the phone, I verified that my account B was now the primary bank account to which payment should be posted. 

On XXXX XXXX, payment was once againfor a third time! posted to my bank account A. 

This occurred even though I had updated my bank account preferences to bank account B online and I had verified the update over the phone with a customer service agent. Even worse, this occurred after I, in good faith as a customer who routinely pays her bills, attempted to correct my initial oversight. The most egregious fact is that this occurred without any alerts to me, a long-standing customer, that payments were being rejected and returned. 

I learned from a discussion with XXXX, an account supervisor, on XXXX XXXX that it is Citis policy to automatically post payment to the same account multiple times even if payment is rejected and returned. And this is done without ever alerting the customer. The customer then incurs multiple fees from his/her bank account and Citi also charges the customer fees. Even more disappointing, all these returned payments have the potential to adversely affect the customers credit rating. 

My Card Agreement states in Section 6, Authorized Users and again in Section 8, Credit Reporting : We report Account information in your name, as well as information about you to Consumer Reporting Agencies, on a monthly basis. The information we provide may appear on your credit reports. This can include information about : Late Payments ; Overlimit amounts ; and Returned payments ; Other violations of this Agreement ( Section 8, my emphasis ). 

Furthermore, after closely reading Section 5, Payments, of my Card Agreement I have found no mention of Citis policy to post payment multiple timeswithout alert or warning to the customerafter a payment has first been rejected. In other words, Citi does not ever mention a company policy that has the very clear potential of causing customers 1. to incur multiple fees at their banking institution ; 2. to incur multiple fees on their Citi Cards account ; and 3. to suffer an adverse effect on their credit rating. 

This policy of posting payment multiple times without alert or warning to the customer and without spelling it out in the Card Agreement is extremely duplicitous and has potentially disastrous financial effects on Citis customers, including long-term effects on their credit rating. 

At the end of our conversation on XXXX XXXX, XXXX, the account supervisor, scheduled an appointment to call me on XXXX XXXX, between XXXX and XXXX EST, so that he could attempt to right this wrong. He never called. Even if Citi reimburses me the excess fees incurred by re-posting payment to an account with insufficient funds without notifying me of the initial rejection, how can I quantify the adverse effect on my credit rating once these rejected payments are reported?

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