CitiBank hopes you die a slow painful death, along with your credit.
Written: Dec 08 '05 (Updated Mar 16 '06)
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Pros: I'll let you know if there are any ever. They keep taking my calls.
Cons: Rude, incompitant customer service. Almost illegal business practices. NOT MILITARY FRIENDLY!
The Bottom Line: Do not bank with these people. Avoid it especially if you are in the military. If you DO want your credit destoied bank with Citibank.
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| toomuchstout's Full Review: Citibank |
I'd suggest anyone joining any military branch quickly re think that decision as I am now paying for it YEARS later.
I am a pretty hardcore soldier I think, spent a year in Iraq and other fun places and my experiences with Citibank have almost brought so much anger and stress onto me I almost broke down crying.
I started off with Washington Mutual Credit Card until Citibank bought them out in 2002 I believe, correct me if I am wrong. Suddenly they don't have my payment history or records that I made payments after they merged. I got everything cleared up after faxing THREE TIMES my personal bank statement from my checking account at Washington Mutual. They agreed I indeed paid the account on time and it was a glitch in their updated web interface, which was riddled with problems for months to come.
2003 rolls around and I join the Army. I was currently working as a security engineer for an ISP in California and took a $2500 pay cut joining the Army. I called Citibank to let them know I may miss some payments since I was going to basic training then to advanced individual training and had no family or power of attorney to pay bills for me.
Never joined the Army before so I had NO idea how I would pay bills since I did it all online and never wrote check, I still don't think I have checks to my current bank accounts. Anyways.
As I told them I missed some payments. I mailed them the forms for the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act of 1945 and they refunded the late payments and dropped my APR to the mandated 6%. I then volunteered for Iraq and told them again I really probably will miss some payments. I did. When I left my balance was probably $400 of $1000 limit. 4 months into my deployment they dropped my limit to $400 but the APR remained the same.
I returned from Iraq in February of 2005 and called them to get this all sorted out. Again they said they NEVER received a call about me leaving and needed proof I was in the military again and left for Iraq. 2 months and 10+ faxes later they accepted that and refunded some fee's but no increase.
I mailed and called for the next TEN MONTHS! Every time I was greeted with ignorance and malcontempt. I almost felt like if they could have told me they wish I died in Iraq they would have. Even supervisors were rude and completely unhelpful and uncompassionate. I'm not asking for a hand out here, just some damn help.
Now September 2005 I change my tune in the letters and try to play to a more human side of whoever might read the letter. Finally in November 2005 I get a letter stating my credit report had been changed to paid as agreed for all dates and my limit was increased back to $1000.
Now to really get things going December 7 2005 I go and try to pay for some items on Paypal from ebay and it tells me its been declined. Now the day before I paid maybe $200 worth of stuff so I know I had at least $600 to $800 left on the card. I call customer service and can't even get to a person. I get a recording from their Recovery department that they are not open when I am calling during normal business hours. So it takes me calling back to customer service and waiting for the computer to ask me 3 times for my account number then twice for the last 4 of my social to get to a live person who tells me they cant pull up anything about my account and transfers me to recovery again. Finally I talk to someone that barely can speak English who informs me the account is in collection and he does not know why. He put me on hold for a good 10 minutes and tells me they have to order all of my statements back to 2002 when I opened the account. And say that’s all he can do and wouldn't transfer me to a supervisor, as "they do not take calls". So I hang up.
I call back today and speak so another guy and he tells me to call back in 4 hours has he will expedite it to "management". Still no one will tell me what is going on with my card. Everyone's answer is "I don't know sir". So I call back in fours hours, I bet you can guess what they tell me...CALL BACK NEXT FRIDAY??!?!. I about lost it as this point. I explain the account has been paid as normal for years and I just had a limit increase I don’t see what the problem is. He says I do not know either that’s why it's forward to management to see why it is in collection. WHAT KIND OF COMPANY ARE YOU RUNNING WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON WITH AN ACCOUNT THAT BELONGS TO YOUR COMPANY!?
I told him to cancel the card and he said call back next Friday again so I hung up again at this point. I will update next Friday to let you all know the out come but this is INSANE.
Recap. Customer service that rivals street gang members mentality in LA. No one can tell you ANYTHING about your account when you call to see why you can't use your card BUT they do know who can tell you what's wrong but WON'T transfer you to that person. Extremely unprofessional attitudes most likely because people constantly call upset because no one can tell them what in the world is wrong with their account. It takes YEARS to get anything corrected with your account. I'd say I’ve spend close to $100 on faxes and USPS services to get my account corrected.
Please check out my other reviews of HSBC and Patelco to see how this is not an isolated problem with one bank with military accounts.
Dec 10th 2005 UPDATE
So I'm sure all of you reading have been late once in your life on a payment for one reason or another and got about 18 million calls at all hours of the day (hope you didn't give your work number cause they will keep calling there too). Constantly telling you over your late balance, would you like to pay it over the phone now (maybe even with out a fee!), and just repeated annoyances? We'll I’ve now turned the tables since they don't want to give me a straight answer I call 4-5 times a day, and ask what the progress is. Have they found out why my account "mysteriously" went into collections. Each time telling me it takes a week to get all of my statements from years ago and that the last person I spoke with should have told me this. I just tell them yes I know they told me I'm just checking to see if anything has changed. They seem to be getting quite annoyed with me. Imagine that. Still waiting for next Friday when this supposed "review" will be done. I’ve cancelled the account anyways and told them I will only reopen at the end of this if my limit is increased by at least an extra $100. I'll keep you all updated.
Dec 15th 2005 UPDATE
Well about 30 calls later I seem to be getting somewhere. I’ve actually called so many times I’ve started talking to the same people, since they don't transfer you to people you talk to a new person every time. Unless you call 5 times a day. Anyways FINALLY these people listened to me, they said they needed to order all my statements from Citibank since 2002. Which takes over a week since the recovery place is located in a different area. I told them SERVERAL times I had all of my statements going back 5 years since I opened the account along with the letter I got just last month stating my credit limit was INCREASESD. So they told me call back the day after I faxed the statements in. Called told me to call back the next day. Called today now I have to call back Monday. I'll call back another 4 or 5 times today but still I am getting the run around and NO ONE HAS ANY IDEA _WHAT_ IS WRONG WITH MY ACCOUNT.
So with my card being shut off now the Paypal transaction I made with it are bouncing back causing my Paypal account to get suspended AND my Ebay account because people filed payment disputes. THANKS CITIBANK!
December 20 2005 UPDATE:
It is simply amazing the complete arrogance of this company. Here we are almost a MONTH into this and still no one can tell me what is going on. So I ended up having to FAX all my statements from 2001 to now to them. I spoke with this same guy again, Alan, by whim because they DO NOT transfure calls in collections. So he tells me he forwarded it to management and they are still looking into it. He also told me the copies of statements he ordered 2 and a half weeks ago that were supposed to be there at the end of that week he ordered still haven't arrived. Thank god I am a finacial pack rat! Every time I call it is very exciting to try and get the idiot minimum wage rep to call Alan and see what the status. You can't image the pain it is to re explain all of this over and over, which is why I ask them to just call him and see what the deal is since he is the one working on it. I usually get, we can't do that or we don’t transfer calls or they just get belligerent which causes me to get up set then they just hang up on me. Here is whom I’ve spoken with.
Alan - helpful
Ms. Rogers - helpful but clueless
Dana - helpful
Michael - rude, ignorant, incompetent.
And about 15 others I didn't get their names. These just stuck out in my head. At this point I was told again now to call back NEXT MONDAY. Conviently when everything is closed after Christmas. Morons. More updates coming!
December 21 2005 OUTCOME
So I called today and spoke with April, I believe she is a North Korean Communist, anyways she spoke with a manager who said they account will no be reopned and she would not tell me why. I asked her to transfer me to someone who would and she would not. I explain that I had extenuating circumstances and the card by law should be reopened. She didn't care at all. So the story here is Citicard does not care about US Army Soldiers and is more then happy to cancel their card BEFORE CHRISTMAS!
I urge a boycott of Citicard completely. If anyone reading this would like to contact me more about this, say you know or work at a newspaper or TV station, anything to let people know of Citibank’s socialist illegal business practices.
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Epinions.com ID:
toomuchstout
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Location: Maryland, USA
Reviews written: 24
Trusted by: 0 members
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