Consumer complaint received 2026-01-09 00:00:00
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Problem accessing account
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: VA

Complaint narrative:
A week or two ago, my husband had issues with his debit card, he ordered a replacement and the bank issued him a digital card. On Friday, XX/XX/year>, my husband and I woke up and checked our bank account where his direct deposit goes in. His check had gone in but we also had some fraudulent charges that hit the account as well. I contacted Citi Bank to let them know the charges were made on my debit card and to please replace said card. ( The fraud was multiple purchases for a total of {$560.00}. ) They did. They also explained that given the situation I would have limited access to my mobile banking app. She also said that they would add provisional credits to cover the fraudulent charges while they investigated. 
While on the phone with them, I asked them to look into my husbands digital card and why it wasnt working. They asked me to do account verification. And I did. Without explanation, I was sent to another representative that asked me to verify the account again. She wanted to send either a push notification or a text to my phone. Neither option worked. She asked if we had switched cell phone companies or gotten new devices. I explained that we had done so on Monday, XXXX XXXX, but that our numbers hadnt changed. She then said that there was a verification period of 3 days where the system needed to recognize our devices and thats why we couldnt receive messages. She said they were going to send us a letter to verify the account. She stated that was our only option, it said that she had verified my husbands digital card and should be good to go and hung up. We attempted to use his digital card and it was declined every time. Mind you, we are a one-income family. This left us with no way to access any of our funds. We attempted transfers, wires, everything. Declined every time. We called back and spoke to people all day. They said that letter was the only way we could verify our account. They proceeded to ask if we had another number we could use temporarily to receive a code to verify the account. I told them we did not. We asked if we could go into a branch in person to verify our identities and make a withdrawal so we werent without money. We were told they couldnt guarantee that that would work because they would still need to send the text to verify us. We verified SSNs, emails, addresses, we answered security questions, they asked about past vehicles we owned, what colleges we were associated with, previous addresses. We were able to answer everything correctly but because we couldnt receive a text the FROZE our account completely! NO mobile/online access to the account, digital card has been deleted, we still have not received physical cards of any kind. 
We made the decision to drive the XXXX hours to the nearest branch to try to verify in person where we were told they couldnt verify our account in -person without a reference number that had been mailed to us. So here we are, Citi Bank has every dime to our name, and we have no way to get to it. They tell us the letter will be received in XXXX days and that we have to mail back whatever documents theyre requesting. So we are looking at a month of no access to our account with the only money we have. Further more, we did not receive any provisional credits AND on XX/XX/XXXX, we are supposed to be receiving a {$300.00} promotional credit from Citi for being new customers. We called the branch before we made the trip and they informed us that we could come in and close the account but that we would forfeit the promo credit as well as the fraudulent charge replacements .. thats a total of {$860.00} we would have to give up because this bank wont verify us in-person.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief