Say it ain't so! A "reputable" American financial company stealing from it's own customers?! Yes, says California Attorney General Edmund Brown Jr. After a three year probe in to Citibank's sort-of-illegal "account-sweeping" program Citibank has agreed to a settlement where it will repatriate all of the money it stole as well as pay damages of $3.5 million to the State of California.

So how did Citibank manage to steal from it's own customers without many of them even noticing? Well,this excerpt pretty much sums it up:

"Between 1992 and 2003, Citibank employed a computerized “credit sweep” process to automatically remove positive or credit balances from credit-card customer accounts. An account could show a credit balance if a customer double-paid a bill or returned a purchase for credit. The credit sweeps were done without notifying the customer and without regard for whether the customer had any unpaid balances or other charges owed to Citibank."

The company allegedly deliberately targeted more then 53,000 customers nationwide, including the elderly, poor, and recently deceased. Yes, you read that right: Citibank was knowingly stealing from dead people. Delightful, right?! The practice was discovered by a whistleblower in 2001 who alerted top management. Top management decided to just sweep it under the rug and continue as usual for another few years…until threatened with prosecution by the government.

"In July of 2001, a Citibank employee uncovered the practice and brought it to the attention of his superiors. The employee was later fired for discussing the credit sweeps with an internal audit team. In the words of a Citibank executive, “Stealing from our customers is a business decision, not a legal decision.” The same executive later said that the sweep program could not be stopped because it would reduce the executive bonus pool."

Kind of makes you feel all fuzzy inside, doesn't it?

Read the official California Department of Justice release and a copy of the settlement here.