Consumer complaint received 2024-06-25 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems — Problem with rewards from credit card
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: CA

Complaint narrative:
We have banked with Citibank for many years. We have a number credit cards and have maintained several XXXX dollars in our several accounts. Via the use of charges on our Citibank credit cards, we routinely accumulate and spend the points awarded, most often in exchange for airline bookings. We have had over XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX accumulated on just the one card that is the subject of this letter. 

In XXXX of XXXX we attempted to access the accumulated award points in our Citibank credit card ending in # XXXX. Our online banking had shown that we had XXXX miles in the account when we accessed it on XXXX. 

However, the miles were gone. 

We called Citibank and spoke to a representative, who said that their records showed that we had withdrawn all the XXXX XXXX ( nearly XXXX XXXX points at this point ). We said that wasnt so, and Citibank said that they showed we had had the points sent electronically to our address in XXXX XXXX. 

We do not have an address in XXXX XXXX ( and have never even visited XXXX, XXXX  ). When we explained this, Citibank said they would open an investigation. After repeated calls to follow up, Citibank said they had resolved that the points had been fraudulently removed, and they replaced them, which we saw on our on-line account. 

However, a few weeks later, when we went to redeem some of them, they were once again all gone. 

We called Citibank and once again went through their process of speaking with a series of various personnel in several departments. One person said their computer showed that we had called in and changed our phone number and later used that number to have a verification code sent to ( again, in XXXX XXXX ). 

At this point, frustrated with the responses from our calling in, my XXXX and I went in person to the Citibank office on XXXX XXXX. in XXXX XXXX, XXXX There we spoke to a very nice officer named XXXX XXXX. She said she would call in from her bank phone and could perhaps get to a more responsive person. She called what she felt was the department that should handle this, and they said they would open a case. This was on XX/XX/XXXX. 

Not having received the promised call back, we made another series of calls, and somewhere during this process were told that the case had been internally elevated to a higher fraud department within the bank. 

After several months, which the bank said was required for them to investigate the situation, the points were again restored to our account. 

However, within days they had again vanished. After more calls, we were referred to one, and later another Officer of the Bank. The one I most recently spoke to was named XXXX. We asked that this case be moved up to a higher level, and she informed us that she was as high as there was. XXXX said she would send a code number to us through the mail, and when we received it, we should call and they could fix things. I asked to what address she was sending this. She said that for security reasons she could not say. I asked how she could be certain that they were not sending this to the culprit who had quite efficiently been working around the Banks system and pilfering our miles. I suggested that I state the street name that we truly lived on ( most certainly not in XXXX XXXX ) but she said we just had to wait two weeks, and call when we received the letter. After two weeks came and went we attempted to call XXXX ( we had taken her extension ) but were told each time that she was busy. Finally, a week ago, we spoke to another Officer of the Bank, who looked up our case and said that XXXX had marked it as closed. 

At this point, with the theft of our miles compounded by a more than year long inefficient and entirely futile attempt by the bank to resolve this, and then coupled with the arrogant incompetence of this XXXX person simply closing the case and going silent, we have decided to seek legal recourse against the bank. 

Each time this happens the Citi card involved is blocked and we can not ( and do not ) put charges on it. This is not only an added inconvenience, it means that we are paying cash for the airline tickets during all this time that we would otherwise have purchased with our redeemed stolen ) miles. We know that the miles stolen had a redemption value in of between {$30000.00} and {$40000.00}, and when we add to that the at least {$15000.00} we have outlaid in working around the absence of credits, a damage value of significantly more is easy to arrive at. 

We opened the below cases with the XXXX XXXX XXXX with no luck in getting this issue permanently resolved and have zero access or visibility of the accounts. 

XX/XX/XXXX XXXX -Spoke to agent XXXX who opened the case and was assigned to case XXXX XXXX ( XXXX XXXX who resolved the issue of the points but the points vanished again before we could access them again. No new card was issued at this point. 

XX/XX/XXXX XXXX -Spoke to agent XXXX who opened the case and was assigned to case XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ) who resolved the issue of the points but later the points were stolen again. Once again we NEVER were able to access the points. 

XX/XX/XXXX XXXX Spoke to agent XXXX who opened a new case and it was assigned again to XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ). In this case, XXXX advised for added security, they will send a letter that contains a security code and phone number which we will need to call to get this case resolved. We did receive the letter, we called and case was resolved with points reinstated and a new card was issued but never received. We were told we could not the points until credit card was linked to XXXX. But once again, the points were stolen within a week. 

XX/XX/XXXX XXXX Spoke to agent XXXX who opened a new case and the case was assigned to XXXX XXXX XXXX ). We explained the situation to XXXX and she was rude and condescending. She was unwilling to help or listen to our concerns. She also said that we would have to wait for this letter with the security number but would not advise the address where the letter was being sent. We tried to explain to her that we just wanted to ensure it was NOT going to the address in Colorado. We called the XXXX XXXX countless times trying to get a hold of XXXX because the letter she promised was not received. We left many messages and even had our XXXX  XXXX call on our behalf to see if he had any better luck. Of course we didnt receive a call back, text or email from XXXX XXXX anyone in the XXXX XXXX. 


XX/XX/XXXX XXXX Spoke to XXXX and she opened a new case which was assigned to XXXX XXXX XXXX : XXXX ). It was during this phone call, that we were made aware that our previous case had been closed on XX/XX/XXXX by XXXX without resolution. 



Assuming that the bank retains the For security, you are now being recorded messages that I, my XXXX, my secretaries and several assistants in my accounting department have made seeking resolution to this matter, this accumulation of what must be at least forty recordings should constitute a highly complete record of all of the above for the banks reference.

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