Readers M & C are honest people, so when Citibank started randomly depositing money that clearly wasn’t theirs into their account, they called to tell them about it. And Citibank took the money back. And deposited it again. And then sent them a check. M & C say that they’ve begged, they’ve pleaded Citibank to stop sending them random checks — but nothing has worked.
Here’s M’s letter:
This is a strange one. Citibank keeps trying to foist hundreds of dollars on my wife. And not in a good Robert Redford-Demi Moore sort of way.
This was her go-to credit card for a while, since before we met. Around the time of our wedding last year, she charged a couple hundred bucks worth of gifts on what was an otherwise zero-balance card. She went to pay it off a few weeks later, but, lo and behold, it said *they* owed *us* a couple hundred bucks, after some magnificent benefactor credited our account with $600. High times in Fat City, right?
Well, being the mensch my wife is, she called Citibank and told them that somehow their Intertubes were crossed. They transferred her to the fraud department, which promised they’d look into it. Sure enough, a month or two later, we got a letter saying, “We’re on to you, suckers, and we’re taking our money back. Nice try, though.” (I’m paraphrasing.) They debited our account and we went back to the drudgery and monotony of our lives.
Of course, Citibank, being the warm-hearted blokes we all know them to be, never uncrossed their Intertubes and kept wiring money into my wife’s otherwise unused account. A few hundred bucks here, a few hundred there (always in even increments), eventually we had a balance over $1,000 in our favor. It was like the Hannukah miracle, except on a credit card.
So, sure enough, my wife calls back. Sure enough, she’s transferred to the fraud department. Sure enough, they promise to look into it, and sure enough they eventually take their money back. And, this being consumerist, sure enough, they start depositing money into her account again. Always a couple hundred bucks, every few weeks.
What to do? “That’s all well and good, we thought I mean, we don’t use the card, so we figured we could live to ignore it and let them deal with it. “Ha ha,” we’d say to our friends. “That crazy Citibank! Always trying to give us money. What will they think of next?”
Only as of today, they’ve started sending us CHECKS. Just today, I went down to our mailbox and found a fat, juicy check for $600, that said it represents the balance in our account. I mean, it’s like they’re SCREAMING at us: “TAKE OUR MONEY! YOU LOOK LIKE LOVELY PEOPLE! WE DON’T WANT IT!”
Only I can just as loudly hear, like, 800 Consumerist commenters tut-tutting, “You can’t spend it. It’s not your money. You are NOT lovely people; you’re obviously scammers of some sort and you have this coming.”
So the question is, what the hell do we do now? We’ve asked them, PLEADED with them to stop sending us money that doesn’t belong to us. They’re not listening. What now? How do we make them listen? What do we do with this check?
Save us, Consumerist; you’re our only hope!
-M+C
Well, you clearly are not scammers. If you are, you are the worst scammers in the history of scams and you should go back to scam school and take scam 101.
We’re going to be honest with you here and say we have no idea what you should do, other than you should not spend the money. This is what we have learned from several years of summarizing those “Bank makes $100,000 mistake, man spends it, and has life ruined” stories that show up every few months. Once the bank realizes what they are doing, they will want their money back.
If we were you, we’d start by writing an EECB to Citibank. Perhaps you can attract the attention of someone who realizes that, while, as a bank, they are supposed to loan money, it is supposed to be a bit more organized than this. Send them a detailed account of everything that has happened, and tell them to cut it out. (Keep a copy of this letter for your records, too.) It sounds like the “fraud” department might not be equipped to handle this sort of problem.
For more information about launching an EECB, click here. Here’s some executive customer service contact info for Citibank.
Anyone out there have any advice for M & C?
(Photo: cmorran123 )
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Well, if I were being sneaky, I wouldn’t touch the money, but I would continue to let it happen and allow it to pay off my balance on the credit card every month. After a few months, cancel the card and move on.
Seeing how shitty their accounting system is, even if they tried going after you for the money, you account was closed in good standing and they cannot pursue for it further.
This happened to my girlfriend – BOA put $900 in her account that weren’t hers. Then, they refused to take it back, but told her that she would be pursued to the full extent of the law if she spent the money.
She ended up having it in her account (which she stopped using and only left the $900 in) for four months.
@dlab: Something a little dicey on that one… I would have wanted name and all contact info for them saying that.
I’d put in into saving account, until they ask for it back.
And keep interest. Even 2$, will pay for a coffee
I’m quoting AD8BC….. “I had a credit balance of $1000, then I got fed up and called again. They said that it was my money. So I asked for it in writing and I asked for a check. That got their attention. A few days later I got an email from them telling me that incorrect payments had been made to my account, and that they would be removed, the money due them would be deducted from my checking account, and that I SHOULD HAVE CONTACTED THEM ABOUT THE WHOLE SITUATION AS SOON AS I NOTICED IT….. That got MY attention. I didn’t like that. So I called, got a supervisor, told them that I had tried to fix this for months. I offered chat transcripts and emails. And you know what they did?
They met me halfway.They removed the incorrect amounts from my account but they also credited me for a number of months of free service for my inconvenience.”….
I would have done the same – asked for a supervisor and then their supervisor – and mainly to have them put it in writing! Of course, you received a check – but did you get anything in writing saying it was yours to spend?
I would copy the CEO and any one else I could find from a Stockholder’s report….look on line and keep copies.
(This out sourcing of customer service is driving all this,is my opinion – ball get’s dropped countless times – training is lacking – Everything is going haywire as Corp. Executives pat themselves on the back and get out of touch with what’s going on in reality inside their companies.) It’s just figures/numbers on paper – And key is Looking good! As a stock holder in several companies, I may be vocally present at a few Annual meetings this year – maybe it’s a place to start – we do own a share of the companies we invest in – don’t we?
Gotta tell you I smiled with the humerous style of your writing! Give me a follow up please!
I love this : On another note, if you’re that concerned, you can contact the police or FBI. Tell them you’ve been receiving a large number of unexpected deposits and you suspect foul-play. This could be some weird variation on a 419 scam. Close the card and don’t cash the balance checks the bank sends you. Try going into your branch and asking for help.
This should get you somewhere – kinda doubt it’s a terrorist or scam going on – but WHO KNOW? It’s your duty to report it – and FBI may take you seriously or know how to contact the right person to fix!!!
i would NOT cash the check & go thru the regular rigamarole w/ the fraud department. THEN i would request that the account be closed & a new card issued on a new account.
i think i would also request some form of compensation for your time. is this a rewards card? if so, maybe a bunch of points. if not, maybe a toaster or waffle iron or whatever they give new account holders these days.
after all, you have been doing their job for them…compensation is in order.
You could always void the check and mail it back to them. Keep copies, though. As long as you haven’t cashed the check, then no money has moved from their accounts into yours, and so you’ve got no liability.
As Meg said, eventually, the bank will want their money back. Until then, stick it all in a nice, interest-bearing account. Then when they finally pull their greedy head out of the generous ass they accidentally stuck it in, you can give back the money and keep the interest! YAY!
this reminds me of an old song, the Credit Card Song by Dick Feller
[www.themadmusicarchive.com]
Just in case:
[revision3.com]
I hear that Iceland is offering some EXCELLENT interest rates right now.
I had something similar happen. In the end I needed to get a lawyer to make it stop and they agreed to pay the lawyer.
For two years I kept calling and having them take the money back. Like clock work six months later around $5K credit would reappear. I never touched the money. Nothing ever went to court or anything like that, it just seems that when the lawyer wrote a letter that finally caused someone to look into it enough to make it finally stop. I never did learn why it was happening.
I talked to the lawyer (the same real estate lawyer I had used for a few things before) and he agreed to send a letter free of charge. If it worked he would ask them for $300 in a settlement. In the end he got closer to $200 and he was fine with that.
I work at a bank and have seen something like this before. It happens when someone sets up automatic payments with their local bank and send $xx.xx at a determined interval. They mistaking have an incorrect account number on the payment and it happens to be a valid account belonging to this peson. It may take a while beofre the other person realizes the error but the bank will evently find out from the real owner and come looking for the money.
Normally, I would suggest putting the money into an interest-earning account, but, seriously, how much interest are you going to earn on 600 dollars in the few months before Citibank realizes their error? In this kind of situation, I would go to the actual bank branch that issued the check instead of trying to talk to the “fraud department” on the phone and explain and talk to somebody in person.
If you attempt to return the money repeatedly and they don’t accept it, I would check into the regulations for unclaimed (escheated) property in your state. Thenk you can, legally, turn the property over to the state and it can be theirs to worry about. The best part is, in some states, if the money is not claimed in several years, it may revert back to you.
I work for an insurance company and we have to do that all the time with correct payments that get sent back due to invalid addresses or checks that never get cashed. It can be a pain, because you also have to send notices, including adds in the paper, but it does get it out of your hands in a legally protected manner.
Request they change your account number as they do in the event of unauthorized card usage and your issue will disappear. Most likely the error is caused by an individual that is trying to pay their own credit card bill, and is accidentally paying yours. It is possible Citi would have no idea who the actual account owner is if they pay cash at a branch. The checks they are sending are for overpayments. Not the worst problem to have, the person making the payments is likely many months late on their bill now!
Well I used to work for the devil, otherwise known as Capital one so I know a few things about what’s going on that might shed some light.
1. Any account with “suspicious activity” gets flagged and automatically forwarded to fraud or the CYA (cover your ass) department. Suspicious activity is anything out of your normal spending habits and in this case the fact that they aren’t using the account but are recieving funds is suspicious and therefore flagged.
2. In most cases when an account carries a credit for 2 billing cycles a cheque is supposed to be automatically directed to the address on the account as refund for the credit amount.
What I would do to rectify this is call and report your card lost. NOT stolen because they can ask for a police report for that. Reporting it lost will freeze the account and issue a new card number solving your end of this hassle.
Why make a little interest? Make as much as you can by investing their money in your own business! This is what the City would do, isn’t it? And make sure you send them certified letters as soon as you receive the checks so they won’t have a case to request any interest since your letters – is up to them to correct ther mistake and collect their money. Enjoy it!
There is one and only one option, close the stupid account.
Anything else, i.e. calling them repeatedly, moving the money around, etc. is, at the least futile and at most the appearance of attempted fraud.
Don’t put the consumer on the defensive and the credit card company (who has a legal team with nothing better to do) on the offensive, it’s not worth the few bucks they might make on their error.
i actually had this happen. and this happened when i was 18 fresh and young…going to college….keep it short. total i got about $30,000.00 and some change. crazy huh. im 26 now and this ended just ended back in 2006…or closing to 2007.
it happen like M+C…i opened a credit card with 500 limit for college(american express blue i think) bought a few things paid it off ..then the money started to come in…same thing i called Credit company few times they took it they gave it back they took it they gave it back….etc. for about a year or so…then i just gave up on them..then they started to send me checks..so i contacted my(friend) lawyer…he said simply keep your records and phone calls and what not..cash the money and put it in a safe at a bank somewhere….
then the letters started to come…wanting there money and what not…they charged me of theft and so on…
keep it short ended with the judge granting me all $30,000.00…since it was not my fault and so may years went by…but in the end i ended up getting 15,000 because the bank was gonna go more in to legal matters with this..so judge just said take half and end it….
“for thoose of you who think im a crook for taking the money …i only took it because for the court crap i had to go though when i was going though college…sucks balls…and since i didnt press any charges the judge said just take half.
so i say just save it somewhere
you should either close the account or bring this to the attention of a higher up at citibank. the irs could realize you have a sum of income that isnt accounted for and it could in theory cause a problem. using the money to collect interest could in the end cause a problem. the ups thing…….i guess call ups and figure out the deal. also you should try to find out if someone has stolen your identity and is using your social and such to get work and is direct depositing it in ” there ” account which in the end gets mixed up with ” your ” account. :: shrugs:: that’s what i would do anyway….
-Luis
Open a Savings account with CitiBank – And ask them to direct deposit the money from the credit card to the Savings account. Once they figure out their mistake – then they can deduct the money – and you never have to touch it.
– With any luck – They won’t try to come after you for the interest that you earn from them.
– As an extra bonus – They pay you even more money on the interest