Trip to Argentina Launched Credit Card Misadventure

Maybe I’m lucky, but only one erroneous charge ever has appeared on one of my credit cards, and that $200 item was quickly removed when I brought it to the attention of the company that issued the card.

David Muir, a Pasadena resident, was not so lucky--until Wednesday, that is.

Eleven months ago, he found he had been billed for two $1,263.50 airline tickets from Buenos Aires to New York and Boston, which he and his wife never ordered or used. And all his efforts to get the charges stricken from his Citibank Visa card were rejected for months by the bank.

Muir is only 27, and had been a Citibank customer for only four months when this misadventure occurred.

But Wednesday, after a weeklong new investigation undertaken into the matter, bank spokeswoman Maria Mendler called me to say a full credit for $2,527, the cost of the two tickets, would be issued to Muir’s account within 48 hours.

Muir’s story was relatively simple. While on a vacation in Argentina, he and his wife decided to visit Iguazu Falls, and went to a Buenos Aires travel agency to buy tickets to fly there. Muir said he briefly gave his Citibank card to the travel agent to bill for the flight, and he signed for the Iguazu Falls tickets.

It was only when they returned home that Muir received a bill indicating that he had also signed the travel agency’s charge for the two $1,263.50 round-trip tickets on American Airlines from Buenos Aires to New York and Boston.

The signature is somewhat obscure, but, on visual inspection, it doesn’t appear to contain the flourishes that Muir’s regular signature does.

Muir appealed to Citibank to strike the charges. He pointed out that the credit card agreement declares, “You may be liable for unauthorized use of the card, but not for more than $50.”

But three letters to Muir from a Citibank customer service rep signing as S. Larson--one dated Feb. 9, the other two March 2--made it clear that in this case Citibank did not intend to honor the “not for more than $50” provision.

“Since this sales slip is embossed with your credit card and is signed, we consider this charge valid,” Larson said in the Feb. 9 letter.

In identical letters on March 2, each pertaining to one of the ticket charges, Larson declared, “While we understand your position, no means is left to further intervene on your behalf with the merchant or their bank. Please contact the merchant or seek other options to obtain satisfaction. This investigation is complete.”

The customer rep gave no telephone number to which a response to him could be made, and Muir said he believed attempts to contact the travel agent who billed the New York flights would be futile.

Muir was not ready to accept the rejection. On March 16, he wrote a letter to Citibank saying, “I still dispute this item” and contending that the differences between the signature on the credit card slip and his real signature should constitute “proof that this transaction was fraudulently posted.”

“It appears that they [the Buenos Aires travel agents] forged or tried to sign my name,” Muir said.

“These charges are completely fraudulent, and at no time in our lives have we ever been to New York City or Boston. We have never flown on . . . airline [through] NYC or Boston. . . .

“I am enclosing recent checks which I have signed which show my signature. The signature on this [credit card slip] is not my signature. First, I think the person who did this intentionally wrote in the printed section [of the slip] so it was harder to see, and the two obvious deviations from my signature are the ‘D,’ which they tried to sign and the line under my name. . . .

“I loop my signature on top and have for 10 years. This is not my signature.”

But despite his ardent protests, all Muir got back was a form letter, and Citibank continued to bill him for the disputed charges, although it had given him a new credit card with a different number.

Rather than risk a bad credit rating, Muir has been paying the minimum charge each month.

He says he considered suing Citibank in Small Claims Court for the money in dispute, but was told the suit would have to be filed in South Dakota, where Citibank is incorporated, and he could not afford the expense of going there.

On Oct. 6, Muir asked me to ask Citibank about the matter.

When I did, on Oct. 19, spokeswoman Mendler soon said Citibank would reexamine the question of the validity of the charges.

On Tuesday of this week, the investigation, being conducted out of a Citibank office in Sioux Falls, S.D., had not yet been completed.

Mendler said Citibank was examining whether the Buenos Aires travel agency had a pattern of disputed charges that might indicate a problem there.

On Wednesday, about 2 p.m., Mendler called me back. She said the investigation into the travel agent’s charges was completed, and Citibank made a decision to give a full credit to Muir.

The Citibank spokeswoman did not provide any detail about what the new investigation had uncovered. She simply said, “We went back and looked at the matter and our prior investigation and determined we should give him [Muir] a full credit.”

Muir expressed delight.

On Tuesday, Mendler had said, “The foreign merchant had an embossed card,” and before Citibank is willing to remove a charge, it must examine the precise situation, because “different disputed charges have different reasons. . . . Constant disputed claims may send a signal.”

I was also told while looking into this, but not by Mendler, that banks have had a fraud problem in Latin America, and have discovered, in some cases, that an American credit cardholder has made a deal with travel agents there to split money billed on a credit card on the supposition that he or she could get all the charges removed once returning home.

Muir said there was no such split in his case, nor would he be party to such a crooked arrangement, and Mendler had said that Citibank was not investigating Muir in its reexamination of these charges.

These can be difficult cases. One might even be tempted in the future to pay most bills in some places in cash, not credit cards.

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Ken Reich can be contacted with your accounts of true consumer adventures at (213) 237-7060, or by e-mail at ken.reich@latimes.com.