Consumer complaint received 2023-07-15
Product: Credit card or prepaid card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem when making payments — Problem during payment process
Company: CITIBANK, N.A. (GA)

In XX/XX/2023, I created a Citibank checking account. I decided to use the Citibank checking account to pay my XXXX Citibank Credit card. 

I set up automatic bill pay with a specified amount of about {$200.00}. My first bill pay was XX/XX/XXXX for {$130.00}. My second bill pay was XX/XX/XXXX for the same amount. Both of these amounts were lower than the amount I designated. These amounts were so low that the did not meet the minimum payment of my credit card, and the minimum payment of my credit card increased to a little over {$700.00} for the month of XX/XX/2023. 

To remedy this, I once again updated my custom automatic bill payment to {$200.00} a month. I checked the bill payment a couple of days later, and the change had not taken. So, I went in again. This time, I updated my custom automatic bill payment to {$250.00}. Please note, that these payments are scheduled to be taken twice a month ( on the XXXX and the XXXX ). So, I had therefore schedule {$500.00} worth of payments. 

I reviewed my account at a later date. My bill pay update was successful, on XX/XX/XXXX my Citibank bank account was drafter {$250.00} in order to pay my Citi bank credit card. Knowing that {$500.00} was not enough to make my minimum payment of {$700.00} for the month of XXXX, I made an additional payment of {$450.00} to my CitiBank credit card on XX/XX/XXXX from an external bank account. This brought my totally monthly credit card payment for the month of XXXX to {$700.00}. The monthly payment due was {$700.00}. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, despite still having my custom auto payment set to {$250.00} and despite having already paid my minimum payment for the month of XXXX. Citibank drafted my checking account {$350.00} ( my checking account only contained {$290.00} in it ). This overdraft-ed my account by {$53.00} I called Citibank to inform them that they had taken an unauthorized {$100.00} from my account causing me to overdraft. They said that they were justified, because they were trying to make up the minimum payment. I told them that I not consented to that amount, and that I had already paid the minimum payment of {$700.00} that month. They told me that the were still justified because I was over my credit limit, so they took the money to bring me below my credit limit. 

I was close to my credit limit of {$8700.00}, but I was not above my credit limit. The customer service representative said that he would not pay back the unauthorized {$100.00} to my account, and he attempted to give me a lecture on how I can do better in the future. 

I have still not received the overdraft amount on my Citibank checking account, but I am sure that it will be coming soon. Now, I have to wait for a money transfer of {$54.00} to my Citibank checking account from an external account, in order to be able to close my Citibank checking account. 

Not only do I feel that this whole experience has been a breach of trust, an overreach, and a complete abuse of power, in which they are protecting themselves by hiding behind their own legal jargon. I feel that they deceptively presented their automatic payment system as a convenience, when in reality they are using it to take whatever amount of money from customers accounts that they want. Even if that amount is above or below what was authorized. 

I mean, when they drafted my account {$130.00} twice the first time I signed up for autopayment, even though I set the amount to {$200.00} ( a total of {$400.00} over those 2 payments ). Citibank profited on the interest on the {$120.00} that they did not draft for the month of XXXX. So, Citibank has made money on both over charging me on the autopayment and undercharging me on the autopayment. 

In synopsis, I set my Citibank credit card autopayment to $ XXXX {$250.00} 3 separate times. 3 separate times, the Citibank credit card autopayment took a different amount than the amount that was authorized, until it took 40 % more than the authorized amount. When I informed Citibank credit card services of this, they refused to repay me the {$100.00} or compensate me for or waive the impending overdraft fee on my Citibank checking account. 

An additional note : When uploading the documents to file this claim, I did notice that the email said that the {$250.00} autopayment was a one-time payment adjustment. However, even under that logic and the logic that the customer service agent provided, because I had already paid {$700.00} of the {$700.00} minimum payment, Citibank should have drafted my account {$0.00}, not {$350.00}.