nearly $26 million for allegedly discriminating against Armenian credit card applicants.

A lawsuit filed Friday in a California federal court seeks class-action status for applicants and customers of the bank who may have been affected.

The suit alleges that Citibank illegally denied or revoked certain credit cards for eight years because of an unfounded suspicion that people of Armenian descent were more likely to commit fraud. According to the suit, the bank even tried to hide the fact that it was assuming people with last names ending in -ian or -yan in or around Glendale, California — an area known as Little Armenia — were Armenian.

"Redlining is a disgusting form of racial and ethnic discrimination by banks that the law has prohibited for decades, yet we find it is still being practiced by Citibank, one of the largest financial institutions in America," Ara Jabagchourian, the attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement. "Labelling credit applicants as 'bad guys' on the basis of having Armenian last names is reprehensible, immoral and illegal."

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined Citibank last Wednesday, saying it was discriminating against Armenians who had applied for store credit cards. The regulator said from at least 2015 to 2021 the bank “treated Armenian Americans as criminals who were likely to commit fraud" and referred to them internally as the “Southern California Armenian Mafia” or "Armenian bad guys."

Marine Grigorian, the lead plaintiff in the case, is of Armenian descent. She alleges that in March, the bank denied her request to raise her credit limit on a Costco-branded credit card, giving her no legitimate reason. Grigorian only made the connection with her ethnicity once she read press reports about the CFPB’s investigation and fine, according to the suit. 

A Citibank spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Messenger, but last week responded to the CFPB allegations. The bank apologized to applicants who were unfairly evaluated “by the small number of employees who circumvented our fraud detection protocols," the spokesperson wrote in an email at the time.

“Regrettably, in trying to thwart a well-documented Armenian fraud ring operating in certain parts of California, a few employees took impermissible actions,” the spokesperson said last week. “While we prioritize protecting our bank and our customers from fraud, it is unacceptable to base credit decisions on national origin.”

The bank also said it had taken action against those directly involved and put preventive measures in place following an internal investigation.

https://themessenger.com/business/citibank-is-sued-days-after-armenian-mafia-discrimination-allegations-surface