Consumer complaint received 2025-03-04 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Fees or interest — Problem with fees
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: NJ

Complaint narrative:
XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX XXXX ET, I called Citi at XXXX to lower my interest rates on my Citi credit card balances that totaled to {$15000.00} and explained that I had been a customer for 20+ years with excellent status, and planned to aggressively paying it off but the interests rates were too high. The representative said they could not offer me anything to lower my interests rates. Then I requested to close my account. Then the representative offered a 0 % balance transfer promotion which could be used on my the Citi balances as long as I don't close my account. I told him I did not want to pay the fees for the balance transfer as I have already paid so much in interests fees the past several months and would like to close my account instead. He asked to put me on hold to see if there was anything he could do to keep me as a customer by speaking to his manager and if the balance transfer fee can be waived. He came back and told me they can not but he can offer to refund me on the interests I had paid from the past months to offset the balance transfer fee. He continued to explain that he can only offer me the refund as long as I accepted the balance transfer promotion and did not close my account. I had asked him again to confirm that if I will receive the refund on the past interests paid that would equal the amount of the balance transfer fee of {$15000.00} because that is the only way this make sense for me to take the offer to keep my account and I did not want to pay anymore fees. He told me that is correct as long as I accept the 0 % balance transfer promotion and did not close my account. I agreed to accept the balance transfer promotion based on the refund for past interest paid that amounted to the total of the balance transfer fee for {$750.00} for a {$15000.00} balance transfer which he calculated and confirmed and assured with me. I had thanked him for this offer and refund. He said {$15000.00} would be deposited into my checking account after verifying my checking account number, the {$750.00} balance fee will be charged to my Citi account and then a refund for the {$750.00} for the past few months of interests paid. I thanked him again and ended the call. The call was 33 minutes long. 

XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX XXXX ET, I called Citi again because I had noticed that the {$750.00} was refunded to my Citi account and asked when I would receive refund after explaining to the representative that I had spoken to a representative on XX/XX/XXXX where I was told I would receive the refund as long as I had accepted the 0 % balance transfer promotion and did not close my account. She then put me on hold for a while and came back to tell me they can not refund me. I told her that is not what I had agreed to with the previous representative. She had put me on hold again to see if there was anything else she could do. She came back again saying they can not refund me. I requested to speak to a supervisor. She transferred me to a supervisor and I reiterated the balance transfer promotion offer and {$750.00} refund that the previous representative had me accept. The supervisor then told me that the representative should not have offered me the refund because Citi does not offer refunds on interests paid. I told him I was surprised and shocked to learn this as the previous representative confirmed and assured me the refund as long as I accepted the balance transfer promotion and did not close my account. He told me again that they do not offer refunds for such promotions. I told him this is a deceitful business practice costing me more money and the previous representative did not help me in good faith. I requested my account to be closed which he did so. I asked him who I can speak to file a complaint on the XX/XX/XXXX representative and he said he would file the complaint. The call then ended. The call was 1 hour 14 minutes long.

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