Consumer complaint received 2026-06-15 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — Store credit card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems — Problem with balance transfer
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: NJ

Complaint narrative:
In late XX/XX/XXXX, my My Best Buy Visa Platinum account ( issued by Citibank , N.A . ) was the subject of an unauthorized {$5400.00} balance transfer plus a {$270.00} fee, totaling {$5700.00}, directed to a third-party bank. I reported the fraud promptly. The compromised card was cancelled and a replacement issued. I opened a formal dispute on XX/XX/XXXX, which was acknowledged in writing by the issuer on XX/XX/XXXX. The fraud was eventually resolved in my favor. The issuer reversed the fraudulent charges, removed associated interest, and confirmed clean credit reporting to all three bureaus. I acknowledge these actions and do not contest them. The grievance I raise here is not with the resolution of the fraud. It is with what happened in the seven-month interval between the fraud and the resolution, and specifically with the way the issuers own accounting errors during that interval caused me to incur substantial costs that have not been acknowledged or remedied. In late XX/XX/XXXX, the issuer credited the fraudulent amount to my account twice once when the receiving bank returned the funds, and a second time through the issuers own dispute-resolution process. The result was a credit balance of {$4700.00}, which appeared on my XX/XX/XXXX statement and was confirmed in writing by the issuers standard credit-balance disclosure stating that the credit balance was owed to me and would be refunded. I had no way to know the credit was the product of duplicate posting. The statement and the accompanying disclosure presented the credit balance as a legitimate, refundable amount. I made financial decisions in reliance on that representation. On XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX, I directed {$1600.00} from my monthly budget to pay down the balance on another credit card a Capital XXXX XXXX account that, as of those dates, carried XXXX XXXX XXXX promotional XXXX through XX/XX/XXXX. The acceleration of those payments was undertaken in reliance on the Best Buy credit balance as a source of available funds for ongoing household expenses during the months I was reducing my other obligations. Because the Capital One balance carried XXXX XXXX interest, the accelerated payments produced no interest savings ; they were a pure liquidity sacrifice undertaken solely because the Best Buy credit balance, as represented by the issuer, made the reallocation appear financially safe. In the same reliance, I also made appliance purchases I would not otherwise have made. Beginning in XX/XX/XXXX and continuing through XX/XX/XXXX, the issuer made a series of unexplained, backdated corrective entries to my account, attributed in their own system to the cancelled card number. These included entries labeled as cash advances on a card that had not existed for months, balance transfers between accounts that did not occur, and a {$2400.00} Credit Balance Refund recorded as disbursed but never delivered to me. Throughout this period I had no clear written explanation of what was occurring on my account. I sent XXXX formal demand letters by certified mail, in XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX, requesting accounting and resolution. The issuers substantive explanation arrived only after a federal complaint had been filed. In a letter dated XX/XX/XXXX, the issuer acknowledged that credits totaling {$11000.00} had been applied to my account in error exactly twice the legitimate amount of the fraud reversal and described the corrective entries as attempts to reverse the duplicate posting. In a letter dated XX/XX/XXXX, which I did not see until weeks later because it was posted to an online portal rather than mailed, the issuer disclosed that the {$2400.00} refund had been applied to the account balance rather than issued to me as a check. By the time the dispute resolved, the issuer had reversed the disputed charges, removed associated interest, and confirmed clean credit reporting. But the consequences of the underlying error fell entirely on me. The {$1600.00} I had redirected to XXXX XXXX had been paid against a 0 % balance with no interest-savings benefit a pure liquidity sacrifice undertaken in reliance on a credit position that did not, on the corrected ledger, exist. The appliances I had purchased remained obligations. The XXXX XXXX promotional balance on a refrigerator I had purchased in XX/XX/XXXX, originally scheduled to mature in XX/XX/XXXX, was dissolved into ordinary interest-bearing debt without my authorization and has not been restored. And approximately {$2800.00} of debt that I would not have incurred but for the issuers misrepresentation of my account became real obligations I must now pay. I am not asking that my legitimate debts be forgiven. I incurred them and I will pay them. I am asking that consumers and the financial-services industry recognize what is genuinely at stake when an issuers accounting error causes a consumer to act in reasonable reliance on a misrepresentation of their account. When the bank corrects the error, the ledger resets. The consumer does not. The decisions made in reliance on the banks representations can not be unmade. The XXXX months I spent in correspondence, certified letters, and dispute management can not be recovered. The costs of the banks mistake are borne entirely by the consumer who acted on the banks own written statements. I publish this account so that other consumers, other institutions, and regulators are aware that a banks accounting error is not a victimless event that can be cleanly unwound. The asymmetric harm it imposes on the consumer who relies on it in good faith deserves scrutiny.

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