Nice try, thieves
I received my February credit card statement and there was only one charge. I stood in my parent’s kitchen, staring at the bill and searching my brain for what I could have charged for more than $100 on a Tuesday in January at a company I’d never heard of. I was sure I had paid this sucker off! What could this be? A phone call to the company, in
Nebraska, showed that I wasn’t losing my memory I was being conned.
Consider this a warning to anyone who has a CitiBank credit card. Look at your statement closely. Hopefully, this letter to my state attorney’s office will garner some attention.
“I am writing in concern of a charge for $129.95 on my February Citibank statement. When I called the phone number listed for the charge a company called EssentialsGold — I was surprised to hear one of the automated choices on the answering service was, “Press One to contest a charge on your credit card.” I was even more surprised when one of their employees told me this was a product in conjunction with my CitiBank card. Not only have I not received information about this promotion, but I never agreed to pay for this. The Essentials Gold employee couldn’t find me in their system and wouldn’t continue the call unless I gave them my credit card number over the phone. When I refused, they told me that I should fax them my credit card statement to have the charge changed. Again, I was uncomfortable giving them this information.
I called Citibank and they promised to reverse the charge, but would not give me any information on why they had supplied the company with my personal financial information in the first place. It is unethical and bad business to charge people unwittingly for services they do not want. It is even worse that my credit card company, in a time of identity theft, is sharing my personal financial information with a third party. Whether I have to pay for the charge or not, I am concerned for the thousands of others in Arizona who will probably pay for this bill without looking closely at their statement. This is a fraudulent business practice; they are trying to cheat us. I hope you will do something about it.”
Come on, Terry. Tell them to play fair. (As if getting thousands of dollars in my interest money in the last six years wasn’t enough.)
~AK
I read your item concerning EssentialsGold. My bosss widow has a charge for $10.95 every month on her credit card. Did you ever hear back from the Attorney General?
Thanks,
Bob
We looked at our statement(s) and discovered that charge of $10.95…shame on us…we had bee paying it for over a year. When I called CitiBank…thaey knew exactly what the charge was, and offered us a $60 credit for groceries….ending up getting a full credit for all the charges. This is a MAJOR issue with a credit card company that ispartnering with a company to rob its customers
Thanks africankelli…
I saw this 10.95 charge on my citibank card today, did a search, read your comments, called citibank and I also believed I am being scammed as well. Thanks for the advice. I will be contacting the the New York State AG as well. As a long time citibank customer I am shocked and appalled at thier response that I must contact this third-party to deal with the problem after stating that I never gave permission to charge my account.
Ned Vickers
Ill prefer to stay anonymous for obvious reasons, but my wifes CitiBank statement this month showed an EssentialsGold purchase for 129.95. Bullshit!!! Weve maintained a $0 balance for several months, and this stuck out like a sore thumb. We called Citibank to dispute and they connected us directly to EssentialsGold! The rep said that our account showed that there was actually a conversation over the phone that authorized the purchase. SCARY!!! Needless to say, we are cancelling that credit card!
Thanks AfricanKelli for the blog - this helped us to quickly realize the scam.
At the beginning of May I also noticed this 129.95 charge on my credit card from the same company, EssentialsGold. I called CitiBank as well and begin the run around, well you need to contact the company, as you can see sir there is even a number listed on the charge… can I provide you with that number if you dont have it handy, etc, etc. My response was, I want to begin a dispute on this charge and cancel my credit card immediately, I am not calling them since I never authorized this charge. Well then CitiBank backed down and stated they would do a dispute and call the company themselves etc… Well now I have to wait a two days to see what is going to happen. This all strikes me as very odd as well.
I was just checking my CC statement (citibank) and I saw this mysterious charge, too! I’ll be calling Citibank to contest this tonight.
I was charged the same way- Letters to Citibank’s Essentials Gold have bounced back to me for bearing a wrong address (someplace in NE)!
I will call Citibank today to see if they can compensate my 100 + bucks !
I was also charged $129.95 from essentials gold and 89.99 from citishopper. Definitely, I didn’t authorize those charge. Does anyone know, what’s the best way to get the money back?
I got this charge as well and defintiely didn’t charge this amount since I don’t use this credit card. Found this blog while searching for information on this card. This seems like a pretty serious problem if Citibank is forwarding personal info to other companies and they are
charging accounts w/o their consent. Hopefully more people will find this blog and we can start raising attention and elevate this issue even higher.
just as a follow-up: I called citibank about those Essentials Gold charges. they investigated them and credited my account but also suggested that I get a new CC# because of potential future unauthorized charges.
I suspect that this isn’t necessarily Citibank’s fault. I "strongly do* suspect this is merely residual effects of the several million Citibank card accounts’ data that were compromised a few weeks ago.
Just called citi and Essentials Gold.
Canceled my card immediately. Apparently I was signed up YEARS ago. –Never received anything until I just received a renewal notice (that looks like junk mail).
There is no question this is a complete scam!!
This is the last time I ever get a Citibank card!!!
I also have essentials gold it’s great it pays for itself many times over every year it saves me 20% up to $100 at Home Depot, Lowes, JC Penny and other large stores I myself was solicited about getting the service while on the phone concerning another matter with Citibank. I was offered & received a $50 savings bond & a free trial period I can cancell at any time when I get my Citibank bill & see $10.95 every month I sometimes question why do I keep on paying this then I do the math and realize I am still far ahead of the game with this program. Try it you might like it
rhobbrcs, rhobbrcs, do you work for Essentials Gold?
I totally got scammed too. my charge was $129.99. called Citibank and told me to call Essentials Gold. Essentials Gold person was rather nice on the phone cosidering I was not even expecting anyone to pick up my call on saturday morning. I told them to issue the cretid backt to me immidiatetly and they said they will. I will see what happens in a few days.
I am another witless Citibank cardholder who has been charged $10.95 for years and years for Essentials Gold. Of course I never signed up for this “service” and therefore had no idea what Essentials Gold is or offered. I have also written to the Attorney General in Connecticut about this predatory card scam program.
I’m also a Citibank cardholder who was just charged $149.95 for Essentials Gold! I also did not sign up for this program or any other program. Citibank has reversed the charges but it is very unnerving that they did this in the first place.