Consumer complaint received 2026-03-31 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — Store credit card
Issue: Fees or interest — Charged too much interest
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: MD

Complaint narrative:
In XX/XX/XXXX I opened a Macys credit card account for the sole purpose of financing a XXXX XXXX XXXX and XXXX resulting from a need to move out of my home because of a XXXX. Subsequently, I fell on difficult financial times related to the divorce and it has persisted to this day. I never fell behind on any Macys payment obligations and have consistently paid down the balance by half. Due to the above-mentioned financial hardship, I had entered a debt management plan with XXXX Solutions XXXX XXXX XXXX was able to negotiate a fixed payment for all my credit debtors, and I had requested they reach out to XXXX to do the same. I make XXXX fixed payment and have for XXXX years now and XXXX disburses portions of the payments to those creditors. Macys response for many attempts over the last XXXX months in attempting to add the account to the debt management plan was that they were not willing to do this until after the promotional period expired, which was XXXX of XXXX. In early XX/XX/XXXX I sent the most recent statement to XXXX to begin the process of proposing to Macys to add the account to my plan and they rejected the offer. When I looked at the account online on XX/XX/XXXX, I noticed that Macys charged {$2700.00} as promotional interest to my balance of {$2500.00} for a total of {$5300.00}. My new balance was now double what it was a few days earlier when we attempted to add this account to the debt management plan. I immediately called Macys and discussed the above with a customer service representative and after they consulted with a supervisor, I was told that we understand and we will waive the promo interest and you can have your debt management plan contact Macys with a proposal for the balance of {$2500.00}. I was very thankful and this discussion was on a recorded line. I contacted XXXX immediately to begin the process again. On XX/XX/XXXX, after several days checking the website for the balance adjustment, I called XXXX and they mentioned that the proposal was rejected because the balance did not get updated. I immediately called Macys again on XX/XX/XXXX and a new representative on a recorded line had confirmed what the original representative had told me and said that the removal of the promo interest charged was removed and quoted the interest removal of {$2700.00} and leaving a balance of {$2500.00}. I thanked them again and reported this back to XXXX. As I checked the balance each of the last couple of business days, there had been no change, and it caused me to contact Macys on XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX. Each of these times after having to reacquaint the representative to my issue, I was now told that I had to pay the balance off in full and then Macys would remove the promo interest. This was extremely disappointing and in direct contrast to what the previous XXXX reps had told me. I asked them to connect me with a supervisor and the supervisors recommendation was to send me to settlement partner at XXXX. I spoke to a representative at XXXX, and he said they are only able to work out a settlement if I was in a delinquent status. So now, when I escalated this issue to XXXX, the supervisor at Macys they said there was nothing they could do. I am forced now to have a balance that is more than double what I owed a month ago, a XXXX XXXX that is negatively impacted because of credit available to credit used and the recommendation to stop paying so the XXXX folks could then work with me. I feel completely bait and switch and now feel like I have reached a dead end. I am trying my best to pay off the balances, but given the doubling of the balance, I can not afford that. I also feel like I tried to communicate with Macys for the last year and a half as I had with all other creditors for debt management plan and it has been Macys intent to just get me to the place where they could charge me {$2700.00} in interest which is completely disingenuous and predatory in my opinion.

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