Consumer complaint received 2024-08-23
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Closing your account — Company closed your account
Company: CITIBANK, N.A. (MA)

This is an issue I have had during XX/XX/XXXX with my XXXX XXXX XXXX credit card. For some background, my wife and I have been Citi cardholders since XXXX, we have excellent credit and we consistently make our payments in full and on time. As we've built our credit history with Citi for 31 years, using this credit card as our primary line of credit for both personal and business, we strongly desire to remain satisfied customers and not to have to switch our business. 

Timeline : XX/XX/XXXX - XXXX mailed our payment for the month of XXXX 's bill ( {$12000.00} ), in the form of 3 checks as I typically do from my different personal and business bank accounts -XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX {$3100.00} XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX  XXXX XXXX {$6000.00} -Citizens Check - {$3000.00} XX/XX/XXXX - I received the XXXX statement saying the XXXX payment had not been received. I immediately called Citi 's Customer Service line and they confirmed the same. As I've dealt with stolen checks before with the Post Office, and upon recommendation of the Citi Customer Service representative, I reissued three new checks over the phone on this date during this call. The Citi Customer Service representative recommend reissuing and canceling my XXXX checks listed above with my banks as a solution, which I proceeded to do after this phone call. The Citi Customer Service representative also stated they would be canceling the interest charge of {$300.00} and the late payment charge of {$30.00}. At this point, I believed the issue to be fully resolved, as the XXXX payment was satisfied with the 3 new checks. On review of my bank account statements, these payments shows to be processed on XX/XX/XXXX : XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX CITI Payment Payment XXXX {$3000.00} Bank XXXX XXXX XXXX CITI PAYMENT XXXX : PAYMENT ( ID : CITIXXXX XXXX ) {$6100.00} Citizens Bank - PREAUTHORIZED DEBIT CITI PAYMENT PAYMENT {$3000.00} XXXX XXXX- I started to have trouble processing my credit card and was notified via email that my credit card has been cancelled. Apparently the old 3 checks for the XXXX payment finally arrived at Citi after the checks had been cancelled with my banks and Citi tried to cash them. They had already been cancelled and therefore Citi cited this as a reason to shut down my credit card. I would like to reiterate that I cancelled the checks at the suggestion of Citi 's Customer Service Department. 

After countless hours on the phone with empathetic Citi Customer Service representatives, I've tried 5 times to get my credit card reinstated and each Customer Service rep supposedly writes the accurate notes for this to happen and to be approved by the Credit Department. Each time, the request for reinstatement has been declined without citing a reason. The Customer Service reps consistently state this should not be a problem and they try to write the notes in a different way, and still, the request is declined. On the 3rd call, the Citi Customer Service rep recommended that I try to apply for a new card in case this continues to happen. We applied for this new card and also got declined. 

I have since written the above information and timeline in a letter to Citibank, and their response is still that they can not reinstate the card at this time. 

The amount of frustration, time and legitimate worry over not being able to access our current credit card has been excruciating. The constant rejections, without explanation beyond the 3 cancelled checks that were due to extenuating circumstance explained above, has been extremely difficult for us to endure.