Consumer complaint received 2017-06-29
Product: Debt collection — Credit card debt
Issue: Written notification about debt — Notification didn't disclose it was an attempt to collect a debt
Company: CITIBANK, N.A. (NJ)

This is in relation to my " Best Buy '' Credit Card which is 'backed ' by XXXX XXXX : I 've had this credit card for years and years, and until the dates in question, I never missed payments. In fact, until the dates in question, I had never missed any payments on anything - I 've had credit for 23 years and in that time, my credit report had NEVER had a delinquency or missed payment at all. Between XX/XX/XXXXand XX/XX/XXXX my scheduled payments were not run ( which no one at the XXXX/Best Buy end can explain the basis for ). I manually paid the invoice for the month of XX/XX/XXXX but, I did not 'check ' to see if the payments that I scheduled online to come out in XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX worked ( as I was going through a separation and moving house at the time ). These payments were not processed and I never knew about it. The statements were supposedly going to my old address during that time and though they 'claim ' I was receiving email statements too, I do n't recall this being the case and I 'auto-file ' those anyway ( because I always pay my bills and therefore have no need to check my statements ), so I did n't see the " overdue '' notifications ... Having said all that, my biggest grievance is this : ***Phone calls were EVENTUALLY made by XXXX/Best Buy BUT, these sounded like fraud/phishing/a scam!! These calls were made by a robot or computer, they came through from obscure numbers in obscure places, occurred at ALL hours of the day, sometimes VERY late at night, and they did NOT state it was Best Buy or XXXX calling. No name was given at all! And absolutely no " basis '' for the call was given either. In fact, the 'robot ' started the call by asking me to identify myself ( not the other way around as it should have been ). Someone asking for information from you before they give any to you is a HUGE ALARM bell and the best practice is to hang up. It was all VERY suspicious, especially to someone like me who works for a bank and sees fraud and scams like this regularly. Hence, I did not answer or hung up. Thus I NEVER learned of my late payments!!! I never knew who was calling as no name was given at all! <P/>As soon as I became aware of the missed payments, I paid them in full and I think I paid off the total balance owing at that time too, to negate any need to deal with them going forward, due to the bad experience. The card is still open but, still has a XXXX balance ... ... ... .. Ive contacted XXXX/Best Buy NUMEROUS times between then and now, by mail and by phone. They have admitted to seeing my point and they have even several times acknowledged that the 'auto-dialer ' issue has been raised by other customers too. And at one point I was promised by a senior staffer there that a letter would be sent to the credit agencies to have the notations withdrawn from my credit reports - this never happened and they deny that, that was ever promised. They have denied wrong-doing and are being entirely unhelpful, unfair and in my opinion, unethical, denying my requests to have these items removed from my credit reports. <P/>Please help me to have these items removed as my credit was and is SEVERELY impacted by them. As my fianc and I are moving in together, I now have XXXX kids instead of XXXX ( aged XXXX, XXXX and XXXX ) and am therefore in desperate need of a larger car, and I need to go on my fianc 's mortgage also. BUT neither of these two things are literally even possible with my score the way it is. Thank you in advance ... I would also like to believe that you can help to avoid this situation repeating itself for other customers by ordering an overhaul of XXXX/Best Buy 's absolutely flawed business practices, especially around the phone-call notifications of missed payments. <P/>Thank you.