Citibank grants a happy ending, albeit with a bitter taste
We bring you a cheery banking story. Earlier this year Yan Yan goes out for a meal at a Wan Chai restaurant and signs for it with her Citibank credit card. She later gets a bill that includes a fraudulent item for HK$694 from the same evening. Not a lot in the grand scheme of things but she's been defrauded. So she calls Citibank to claim and is told she should deduct that amount from her next settlement and will receive a dispute form. Two weeks later the dispute form arrives and is duly filled in and sent back.
A month later Yan Yan receives a credit bill with the fraudulent charge still showing, plus interest. She calls again and is told the dispute form has not arrived. So she e-mails her copy of the form. At this stage there is a series of phone calls and in one of them Yan Yan says she was told by Citibank that the second slip clearly carried a forged signature. Indeed, the difference is so apparent that she wonders how the slip came to be cleared for payment.
Although the bank told her the signature was forged, Citibank now tells her that since the dispute form arrived late, that is, more than 60 days after the event, they must take the money from her, pending investigation, but it will be 'interest-free'. Yan Yan is told she might get her money back, but only after a full investigation, which might take six months.
Last week Lai See got to hear of this and told the bank that we were running the story, and invited it to comment. 'The case is under investigation and we are confident it will be resolved shortly with a full refund ... we need to conduct a full investigation to determine the facts of any case. In the meantime, no charges are being accrued on the balance relating to this incident.'
Well, from that point, the investigation accelerated rapidly and we are pleased to say that on Tuesday, Citibank told Yan Yan it had refunded the money since it was clear that the slip carried a forged signature, and apologised for the bother they had put her through. So a happy ending, perhaps with a slightly bitter taste. The bank was aware some time ago that the signature was a forgery. This leads us to wonder how many other people have their money locked up in similar disputes.
Corporate mythology