Was Citi Stealing From You?

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

Have you ever accidentally paid your credit card bill twice? Or, returned a purchase, resulting in a credit on your bill? Well, if so, it appears that Citi may have been surreptitiously profiting off of you. According to California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr., between 1992 and 2003, Citibank’s computer systems utilized an “account sweeping” program that automatically removed any positive balances from customer accounts and deposited them into Citi’s general fund.

As part of the settlement agreement, Citi will pay more than $14 million in refunds to 53,000 affected customers, in addition to $3.5 million in damages and penalties to California. Affected California residents will be paid another 10 percent in interest. Citi has also agreed to never resume the practice again, and undergo a compliance audit to ensure that all parties have been properly refunded.

It should be noted that all of the affected accounts were in a recovery status, which includes accounts where the owner was deceased, seeking bankruptcy protection, or otherwise involved in litigation or collections with Citibank. According to Brown, “”The company knowingly stole from its customers, mostly poor people and the recently deceased, when it designed and implemented the sweeps.”

According to Citi, it has already begun the task of identifying victims and processing refunds.

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