Consumer complaint received 2019-12-16
Product: Credit card or prepaid card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Trouble using your card — Can't use card to make purchases
Company: CITIBANK, N.A. (TX)

COMPLAINTOver the 16 years that I have had the CITI/Mastercard/Shell card, CITI/Mastercard/Shell has arbitrarily suspended the use of the card claiming suspicious transactions several times. Up to today (XX/XX/2019), there has NEVER been a fraudulent transaction on the card. However, the arbitrary security suspensions continue on a regular basis on the flimsiest of reasons. And while in each card suspension I suspected racial discrimination motives I just let it go, that is, until this last security suspension because this last suspension goes beyond the pale and I have decided to make it known that, in my personal opinion and experience, CITI/Mastercard/Shell actively engages either in racial discriminatory actions and/or CITI/Mastercard/Shell engages in restraint of trade actions and/or CITI/Mastercard/Shell engages in neighborhood redlining, and/or CITI/Mastercard/Shell engages in all of these actions.FACTSOn Monday XX/XX/2019 I found in my home landline phone the sop message from CITI to the effect that my CITI/Mastercard/Shell card was suspended because of suspicious transactions using the CITI/Mastercard/Shell card the previous day, Sunday XX/XX/2019.I called the CITI/Mastercard/Shell customer service number listed on the card and I was informed that the card was suspended due to 3 suspicious events. Those 3 suspicious events were: First, that the CITI/Mastercard/Shell card had been used to make a $XXXX   gasoline purchase in XXXX Texas; Second, that the CITI/Mastercard/Shell card gasoline purchase was at a XXXX, Texas XXXX gas station and that I had never purchase gasoline from a XXXX  gas station; Third, that the CITI/Mastercard/Shell card also had been used again that day to make another purchase of $XXXX   gasoline at a Shell gas station in XXXX XXXX, Texas. Even after assuring the phone rep that, First I indeed had made the purchases and Second, that indeed the charges were legitimate, I still had to assure and re-assure the phone operator that I did have the card in my physical possession.BACKGROUNDAccording to the CITI/Mastercard/Shell customer representative I had never used the card in XXXX, that I had never used the car to buy gasoline from XXXX, and that it was unusual that I purchased gasoline twice in the same day. These justifications are so preposterous as to be laughable if it were not for the prejudicial and discriminatory motives behind the card suspension.My residence is in XXXX XXXX TX, a suburb of XXXX TX. The island of XXXX TX is a State of Texas and USA famous resort and historic area, within less than 1 hour drive from my home,  that I visit very frequently and the proposition that I have never used the CITI/Mastercard/Shell card in XXXX during the last 16 years is simply preposterous. But even if it were true, since when using a credit card in XXXX TX is a criminal suspicion activity?I use the CITI/Mastercard/Shell card preferentially, but not exclusively, to purchase gasoline, mostly at Shell gas stations, but over the years I probably have used the car at all major type of gas stations all over the country. The CITI/Mastercard/Shell customer representative could not explain that the problem was. Was the problem because it was a XXXX gas station, a Shell competitor? Or was the problem was that the XXXX gas station was located in an economically poor, racially mixed XXXX/XXXX neighborhood? For sure in these 16 years CITI/Mastercard/Shell has never had any problems when I have used the card to make purchases, any kind of purchases, at any time of day or night, at any day of the week, at any time of the year, at any location, for any amount, in an economically affluent middle/upper class XXXX neighborhood even when I had never been there before in my life.The most brazen assertion by CITI/Mastercard/Shell was that I had purchased gasoline twice in the same day. My family owns and operates on a daily basis several gasoline powered cars. We usually fill the cars on weekends in preparation to use the cars during the workweek. Because I gas the cars, and I can only drive one car at a time I usually split the car fueling over the weekend. During the last 16 years of this routine it is not unusual at all that I might have to fill-up more than one car, over consecutive days, or on the same day during the weekend. This justification by CITI/Mastercard/Shell is an insulting canard attempt to put a cover to conceal the real reason for the suspension, that in my concept, either/or racially discriminates me, either/or redlines the neighborhood where I made the purchase, either/or attempts to discourage the use of XXXX   gasoline, either/or all of those reasons.RELEVANT EVENTDuring the 16 years that I have used the CITI/Mastercard/Shell card there has NEVER been a fraudulent charge on the card. But the card has been security suspended for the flimsiest, and in my personal opinion, racial prejudicial of reasons.On the preceding Monday (XX/XX/2019) leading to the weekend where the events of this complaint took place, I had a contractor install a new garage door opener in my house and I asked the contractor to charge the cost to the CITI/Mastercard/Shell card. In the process of entering the card information into his portable terminal, the contractor mistyped a value [in flipping the card the wrong way, it read XXXX for XXXX], and made a couple of attempts to make the charges go through but the transactions were justifiable denied. The next day, Tuesday XX/XX/2019 I called CITI/Mastercard/Shell customer service, explained and the situation, the card was re-activated, and the contractor was able to complete the transaction.I document this particular transaction because during the 16 years that I have used the CITI/Mastercard/Shell card this is the ONLY time, ever, that there has been a valid issue with any transaction that could be considered suspicious, and I took the time to contact CITI/Mastercard/Shell.