Consumer complaint received 2025-04-21 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Trouble using your card — Can't use card to make purchases
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: GA

Complaint narrative:
Applied for a Citi XXXX XXXX Mastercard on XX/XX/year> and was approved. I received this card on XX/XX/year> and activated the card in the Citi mobile app after XXXX AM. After navigating through the Citi Mobile app, I chose the option to add my card to my XXXX XXXX  on my XXXX. I went through the process of trying to add my card and waited for the card verification text message. After 20 minutes, I hadn't received the code to verify the card. I went back to the verification process and tried again, and yet again, nothing happened. I called the phone number shown in the XXXX XXXX to verify my card, being that the text method wasn't working. The automated system was the first sign of trouble when it asked me for information that wasn't used to create my account. When I got to a representative ( at the Fraud department ) this person asked me to verify the security word, something that wasn't used when I created my account, but he asked for my pet 's name, and I told him. I explained to him that I was trying to add my new card to my XXXX XXXX. He asked me questions about my phone number, if I had any other Citi accounts, and my employment. I told him I had no other phone number listed for my account, and didn't have a landline, I didn't have any other accounts with Citi and I was retired. He tells me that I would have to wait for them to send me a letter in the mail to verify my account because he had exhausted all his methods to verify my account. I asked him what was going on and he told me that the information I had provided him did not match my account. I told him that wasn't correct. I provided the date of my application to him again and held to his assertion that the information I told him wasn't correct. I told him there was a problem and requested to speak to a manager. He got me to someone named XXXX ( Call ID : XXXX ) and explained the situation to him and he told me that he didn't know why the other representative had told him the information he'd told me, but my account had been flagged for fraud. I explained to him that I'd just received the card this morning and just activated not even an hour ago and the only thing I had done was attempted to add the card to my digital wallet on my phone like any other person would. He explained that had created the fraud alert, and there wasn't a way to verify my information because XXXX had referred the account to them. He told me I would have to wait for the letter and call them back when I got it. I stated to him that why would I have to wait up to 14 days to get a letter from them and that this action on their part would make shopping online unsafe and make it easy for someone to steal my identity because I would be exposing my actual card number when I shopped online. I asked to speak with his manager and after a short wait, he returned and said there weren't any managers available to assist with this matter. I explained to him again that this whole scenario didn't make any sense because people add their cards to their digital wallets and I didn't understand why that action would create a fraud alert. He couldn't give an answer. I asked him again if there was a manager that could take over this call to provide a reason to why this was happening for a customer who had just activated their card and attempted to add their card to their digital wallet and the call was disconnected.

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 non-monetary relief