Citi is forcing me to pay for fraudulent transaction
I have had a rather frustrating experience with Citibank. Several months ago, I noticed a fraudulent transaction on my statement. I immediately filled out a dispute online, and they gave me a temporary credit. I thought all was well.
About a month later, I was wondering what came of this and went online to see that the temporary credit had been reversed. However, this did not show up on my recent activity, but rather on the date of the original transaction. If I hadn't scrolled back several months, I would have never noticed that they reversed the temporary credit.
I called in and they said they would re-open the dispute. They sent me a letter asking me to send in proof that I either returned the merchandise or cancelled the transaction in accordance with the merchant's policy. I sent back a reply reminding them that this transaction was fraudulent and I have no idea who this merchant is, and never bought anything from them in the first place. They replied back and said that since I was unable to provide the requested documentation, they would not credit my account.
I called again, and after almost 30 minutes I managed to get through to the fraud department, who told in no uncertain terms that they had ruled against me and that this matter is closed.
I'm not sure what to do at this point. It was a fairly large amount of money and not something I can just write off. Where do I go from here?