Consumer complaint received 2022-12-08
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: CO
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: Store credit card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
Citibank, on behalf of The Home Depot ( THD ) affinity card, allowed an impersonator to a ) change my home address and b ) obtain a new credit card. Impersonator made a purchase on XXXX  Citi collections started calling me when the card was past due. I did not know it was past due because statements were sent to the changed address. 

I can prove that I was at my home, over XXXX miles from the point of purchase, when the fraudulent transaction occurred. 

I contacted Citi on XX/XX/ to dispute the charge and report the fraud. Over the course of 24 calls ( and 17 disconnections that occurred when I was transferred within Citi ) from XXXX  to XXXX XXXX learned that Citi 's " Security Operations '' team received the fraud case on XX/XX/ - 28 days after I filed it - and the Escalations representative ( XXXX XXXX told me that he does not have the information he needs to conduct an investigation. 

Citi has credited the amount of the original purchase, but has : 1. Charged me interest and late fees totaling {$71.00} for that purchase 2. Refused to credit that amount, or hold it in abatement, while the investigation progresses 3. Not provided any information about how and when they might start the investigation, given that they admit that they do not have the information they need to do so My requests : 1. Initiate the investigation.

2. Credit the interest and late fees to my account.

3. Notify the credit bureaus to hold me harmless on my cre
dit score during the investigation ( my credit score has dropped from XXXX XXXX XXXX since the start of this incident ). 
4. Allow me to talk with Citi representatives about this situation. Citi has denied me the right to talk about this situation on 70 % of the calls I have made because they can not " verify '' my identity, such as thru multi-factor authentication. I have provided a XXXX " password '' that subsequent representatives were unable to use ( they had never heard of such a passcode ). Instead, they call my family, none of whom are named on the account. ( My family does not take calls from unrecognized numbers, but they do review the voice messages left. ) 5. Stop calling my adult children and my spouse about this situation. They are not named on the account. 
6. Put a permanent freeze on my files so that Citi never issues credit in my name. Why? Because Citi makes it easier for someone to commit fraud than for me to even talk to Citi about fixing it, and I have lost all confidence in the Citi organization. 
7. Fix Citi 's telephone system so that I don't get disconnected on XXXX separate transfers over the course of 28 phone calls. Better yet, solve my problem without transferring me among Customer Service, Collections, Fraud, Security Operations and who knows what other departments.

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