Consumer complaint received 2024-04-09
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Closing your account — Company closed your account
Company: CITIBANK, N.A. (NY)

On XX/XX/XXXX, my Citi AAdvantage credit card account was unceremoniously closed because there were XXXX or more returned payments in the past XXXX months. 

When the account was closed, there was no payment due and there had been no other returned checks or late payments in the past XXXX months, or ever. 

Here is the sequence of events : On XXXX XXXXXX/XX/XXXX, I realized that I had not gotten emails thanking me for a payment I mailed from my local post office on XX/XX/XXXX. Aware that the due date was less than a week away ( XX/XX/XXXX ), I called to see if the checks had arrived. 

There was no record of them and I was told I should check again on XXXX XXXX XX/XX/XXXX ), which I did. 

On Monday, XX/XX/XXXX, I placed my call around XXXX ( XXXX ). Since it was a bank holiday, there had been since my previous call only XXXX mail delivery, XXXX XXXX XXXXXX/XX/XXXX ), but my checks were apparently not part of it. I was told that there was no record of any payment. 

At that point, it was XXXX weeks since I had mailed my checks. Convinced they had gotten lost in the mail, or stolen, while on the phone I paid in full the balance due, which was {$7500.00}. 

My next move was to stop payment on the lost/stolen checks just in case they showed up and were deposited by CitiCards, resulting in a double draw on my checking account against money that had already gone to pay the bill. I didnt want to pay twice. 

I received from XXXX confirmation of my stop payment at XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX. A little later that same day, the other card holder stopped payment on the XXXX checks that constituted her share of the original payment. 

As far as I was concerned, the matter was settled. I had paid my bill on time and didnt have to worry about my checking account being drawn on twice for the same charges. 

When I said that I would stop payment on the missing checks, the customer service person who processed my phone payment never warned me that if I did that, the account would be closed. 

I received a notice from my bank on XXXX XXXXXX/XX/XXXX that alerted me to my checking accounts being overdrawn. CitiCards had deposited what I thought were lost checks. When I frantically called XXXX, I was reassured that by the end of the day, the stop payment would erase the charges, which it did. 

On XXXX XXXXXX/XX/XXXX, I received from CitiCards confirmation of payment for each of the XXXX stopped checks. Then on Friday, XX/XX/XXXX, soon after the account was closed in the morning, I received XXXX emails from CitiCards, XXXX for each check, saying that XXXX ( my bank ) indicated a stop payment was put on the check and that I should make a replacement payment. Since I had already paid my balance, there was no need to follow that suggestion. 

By then my account had been closed. 

I requested that my account be reopened, but that request was denied. 
The reason it was denied was because of the returned checks. 

I was advised to write to a Customer Service address, which I did. 
My request to reopen my account ( with the above explanation ) was denied because " this account was closed by us on XX/XX/2024. '' I was a cardholder with CitiCards for XXXX years and my account was always paid in full each month. I didnt incur interest charges and I didnt incur late fees. 

The card is an XXXX card that helps me earn miles. The loss of the card has been a terrible blow to my finances and I fear it has negatively affected my credit rating. 

When I recently applied for a new XXXX CitiCard, my application was immediately declined. 

[ Note that the dates on the CitiCard online account reverses the dates of the payments & returned checks, suggesting that the checks were actually present before I paid by phone, just not entered in the system yet. ]