Consumer complaint received 2024-11-26 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem when making payments — Problem during payment process
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: MA

Complaint narrative:
On XX/XX/year>, I made an electronic payment of {$15000.00} to my Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select Mastercard, the same way I do every month. There was an admitted electronic issue by my bank that resulted in a delay in this payment being made. This payment was debited from my bank account on XX/XX/XXXX but was delayed when sent to Citi Cards. 

On XX/XX/year>, presumably due to the delay in delivering the payment by my bank as noted above, Citi Cards made a duplicate pull from my account, resulting in a total of {$30000.00} debited from my bank account. When I contacted my bank regarding the duplicate payment, they admitted the delay in the initial payment, but advised that the initial payment was ultimately delivered to Citi Cards. At that time my bank reversed the duplicate payment and credited my account in the amount of {$15000.00} on XX/XX/year>. The initial payment was not credited to my bank account and my bank confirmed that the initial payment of {$15000.00} was delivered to Citi Cards. 

Since then, I have made repeated attempts to work with Citi Cards to have the {$15000.00} payment that was sent, credited to my account. None of those attempts have resulted in my payment being applied. One supervisor with whom I spoke even conferenced in a representative from my bank on the phone with me and confirmed all of the information above. Each supervisor was extremely apologetic, was able to confirm all this information, and promised resolution. Each time the information was provided to the Payment Investigation Team, who closed the issue without any contact made to me and without resolution or without a credit to my account.

Since then, Citi has inactivated my payment method with my bank, rendering me unable to make even the minimum payments while this issue is resolved, charged me a late payment fee on XX/XX/XXXX even though Citi Cards left me with no ability to make a payment, provided negative information on my credit report, and elevated my interest rate to the maximum penalty amount. All this even though I made a good faith attempt to make a {$15000.00} payment on XX/XX/XXXX and even though that amount was not returned to me, confirmed by my bank that {$15000.00} was indeed delivered to Citi Cards to the above-referenced account, and even though I made seven ( 7 ) prior good faith attempts with Citi Cards to resolve the issue by phone. 

On XX/XX/year> I sent a formal letter, along with a copy of my bank statement and proof of the payments ( attached ) via two provided fax numbers and sent a hard copy of the letter to Citi Cards via Priority Mail Express, confirmed delivered on XX/XX/year>. I advised Citi Cards following my last attempted good-faith effort by phone that if the issue was not resolved in the communicated XXXX business days that I would file a complaint with the CFPB, and that is noted in the formal letter.

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 explanation