But this explanation sounds odd (and my background is as CPA, so have seen some odd errors and explanations.) Unless you have seen documentation directly from Citibank describing this situation, I would not assume that the landlord’s explanation is correct/accurate or draw any conclusions regarding Citibank itself.
And it still definitely is your problem until you receive the funds you’re missing.
I’m a little surprised at how willing people are to believe the explanations of a person who has not fulfilled an agreement. Trust, but verify. So far, you appear to be very trusting and haven’t actually received a dime. I hope this is the end of it, but wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t.
Of course I will follow through if I don’t receive the check, or the additional $10 to reimburse me for my bank’s service charge. But I see no reason to blame the landlord for this. I think that it’s much more likely that Citibank did exactly what he told me they did. I once had terrible, horrible, unbelievable problems with Chase bank that were hard to sort out so I am not a fan of big banks.
If the landlord doesn’t follow through now he will be vulnerable to very severe penalties. I could take him to court for non-payment of the security deposit and the law would be very much on my side. I can document the stop payment (as Citibank notified my bank) and it would not help him to blame his bank if he did not make sure that I was paid.
Definitely a very strange and difficult to believe explanation. I suspect something else caused the screwup and the bank is simply throwing out the address explanation just to bring the matter to a close.
A few years ago I had an escrow account on a mortgage and the bank messed up the payments for several hundred property tax bills in my county. They sent a list of funds that should be applied to each parcel and one payment. The problem was that the sum of the funds owed was larger than the actual payment amount sent. I don’t know why it took so long to resolve that the payments were late. The county ended up waiving all of our late fees after the bank said they were not responsible and would not pay the fees.