My harrowing experience with credit card fraud

With reference to your editorial “Combating credit card fraud” (2/1/21), let me relate my experience and the harrowing ordeal I went through in following up with the bank my requests for rectification of its records.

Sometime in 2011, I received to my shock two statements from Citibank indicating that I should pay for purchases made under my two credit cards, around P150,000 under my Citi Shell Gold Card and around P75,000 under my Citi Mastercard.

I immediately called my relationship manager at Citibank-Greenhills, Jerome Cu, to inform him of what I thought to be a mere innocent error on the part of the bank, considering that I had never purchased anything worth that much using my two credit cards. After verification with the office concerned, Jerome informed me that it appeared that, first, I applied for the renewal of my two credit cards which were delivered to my residence, and that, second, I used the new cards in purchasing the items mentioned. He advised me to contest the statements by submitting to him a formal “dispute,” which I did, with following information: (1) I never applied for a renewal of my credit cards since they were still good (valid) for several more months; (2) I never received the new replacement cards; (3) I never purchased the items mentioned in the statements using the alleged newly issued cards; (4) With respect to the Citi Shell Gold Card, I only used it for buying gasoline and nothing else.

Yet, the bank continued sending me statements of account for the two credit cards. When I complained to Jerome, he surmised that maybe the dispute form I submitted got misplaced; he advised me to submit a new one which, again, I did. Yet, again, the bank kept sending me its uncorrected statements. Out of exasperation, I even challenged Jerome that if the bank could produce the receipts that I signed, I was willing to pay. The bank failed to do so. (I was even willing to pay the fee of P300 for retrieving the receipts from their archives.)

Several more months elapsed, and still the bank did nothing to correct its records; on the contrary, it persisted in sending me its unsupported monthly billings, this time followed by periodic calls by phone reminding me of my supposed arrears, despite my protestations to the callers that I owed the bank nothing and that I had filed the appropriate dispute forms.

When I complained to Jerome about the unprofessional way the bank was handling my case, which I considered as pure harassment, he told me that if I didn’t settle the accounts, the bank might run after my deposits there. My reaction was to withdraw all my deposits and investments from Citibank, and terminate my relationship with the bank for good.

What happened here, I believe, had been brought about by pure negligence/incompetence of the bank in allowing the issuance of replacement credit cards without appropriate controls/safeguards against hackers, made worse by its insensitivity to complaints which, if promptly acted upon, could help improve its system and protect its clients.

Every now and then, I still receive the usual billings, though the amounts vary from time to time, and which I totally ignore. Last week. I again received the usual “statement of account” of Citi Gold Card for P21,223.13 to be paid “IMMEDIATELY,” but with ZERO “interest and late charges.”

HECTOR INDUCTIVO, UP Village, Quezon City, [email protected]