I think Citibank should be added to your lemon list. I filed a dispute on a charge against a company that turned out to be running a scam. Citibank followed improper procedures in handling the dispute and wrongfully put the $685 that I had disputed back on my account. They immediately added over limit fees. All of this put me way over the limit while I was out of the country for travel. I was unable to buy food.
This put them at the bottom of my priority list for paybacks, since they now want over $1000 for a minimum payment, after adding all of their fees. As a result, they started calling my cellular telephone an awful lot. This increased my phone bill to approximately $400 one month. On top of that, I drive a 40 ton truck for a living and their telephone calls have caused a great risk to the motoring public. One day, after Citibank called me 14 times, I called their office to try to get them to stop. I threatened to file a case through the Federal Trade Comission, as I was being criminally harassed. Citibank told me there was no way they could stop the phone calls, despite the fact that the law says they can call no more that twice per day for collections. The calls continued and also were often made at odd hours of the night, while I was trying to sleep. The FTC referred me to the Office of the Comptroller of Currency. I filed a complaint through them. The OCC also told me to write a letter to Citibank telling them to stop calling. Meanwhile, my wife signed this Citibank account up for a payment plan through a third party. All was going well until Citibank called the third party in charge of the payment plan. They stated that if I did not drop my complaint against them and allow them to continue harassing me on my cellular telephone, that they would back out of the payment plan and that they would require a minimum payment in excess of $1000 for that month. I notified the OCC of this, but have not gotten the reply that I had been promised. Bottom line: Citibank will commit a criminal act, such as criminal harassment, at an attempt at collection on a civil debt, even when said civil debt is past due because of their improper handling of a dispute.
SIncerely,
Robert Mudra
CreditCard.org is still collecting Lemon Award Nominations for Bad Banking. Send them to Problems@CreditCard.org . Award recipients will be publicized October 31, 2006 .
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