I HATE CITIBANK
January 15th, 2008 by Ana
Warning: What follows is a vitriolic diatribe against that credit card company I so love to hate - Citibank. If you do not share my antipathy for credit card companies, this may make you uncomfortable! So let the rant begin…
I HATE CITIBANK! Of all the credit card companies I love to hate, there truly is none my hatred burns as brightly for as Citibank. My apologies to the unfortunate shareholders, but this article on CNN Money about Citibank’s woes makes me smile.
I HATE CITIBANK. In the fall of 1991, they gave a severely underemployed 18 year old college freshman coed a credit card…who had absolutely no earthly business having one. That was me, and of course it was at the college student interest rate, which happens to be the highest credit card interest rate. I thought that meant I was now an adult! What did I know at age 18? I didn’t even have a clue to how little I truly knew. And making minimum wage ($4.25 per hour) at Taco Bell on the weekends to pay for my college did not leave me any money. My stupidity was digging myself in so deep; Citibank’s stupidity was in giving me the shovel to dig my hole!
I HATE CITIBANK. They say studies reveal people feel intense loyalty to their very first credit card. Dave Ramsey says people cling to their very first credit card even after cutting all others up. Not me! And not in this lifetime! Yes I have very strong feelings towards the first company that handed me the financial equivalent of a loaded gun with the safety removed; that feeling is intense hatred.
I truly hate Citibank. Every single semester they are out on the college campuses across the nation, trying to lure more unsuspecting 18 and 19 year olds into the same trap they lured me into over sixteen years ago. I see them on my campus, and so dearly want to picket their table and warn the young college kids away. I’d probably be hauled off by the campus police, since universities get a substantial kickback from allowing credit card companies to push their financial drugs on campus. They are preying on our young and naive.
Let’s not forget their current financial woes are directly caused by their heavy involvement in the subprime mortgage fiasco. Here’s a “great idea” - let’s rip off the same generation we enslaved in credit card debt at ridiculous student interest rates by putting them into truly terrible mortgages…then wonder why they default and get foreclosed on….Yes, I REALLY hate Citibank!
If it is possible to kill a corporate entity, then by all means let us sacrifice Citi Financial on the altar of retribution! If any corporation deserves it, Citibank surely does.
Note to new readers: I am usually not this negative, but reading of Citibank’s misfortune brought it all back up. Tomorrow I will be back to my usual self.
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January 15th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
You’ve got a particularly good point that they got greedy. They loaned money to people who couldn’t afford it…with the hope of making even more money off them.
January 15th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Oy vey I hate them too. I sort of grinned this morning. I wrote about it over at my blog too, but in a slightly different way.
Oh, and by the way, we just got preapproved for our new house, and when we were going thru the process, a ding came up on our credit report. Citibank INACCURATELY reported our card charged off to collection when it was not. It was never behind. we paid it in full in August, yet they reported to the credit bureaus that it was charged off in Dec. 07. RRRRRRRR!!!
January 16th, 2008 at 10:01 am
I have nothing but love for Citibank. Compared to BOA & Chase, Citibank comes out on top for me. They gave me a credit card when no one else would, (a few years ago when I was 18 and had no credit and was trying to build some). They also substantially raise my credit limit every few months. They allow me to pay my bill online on weekends, so I don’t have to worry about late fees. And on top of that, their interest rate is the lowest of the 3 credit cards I have.
However, luckily I had some sense knocked into my head about credit cards before I got one. I’ve never racked up more debt than I could afford, and I’ve never been late on my Citibank card.
I did have a balance on my BOA Card, but quickly transferred it to my Citibank card because of a mistake I made. My BOA credit card bill was due on a Sunday, and I accidentally thought you could pay your BOA bill online on a Saturday. Citibank lets you so I assumed BOA did too. Well they don’t, and they didn’t post my payment until Monday and they charged me a $39.00 late fee (On Christmas day no less lol). I called to get it removed…no dice they said. I e-mailed them your typical “I’m going to be taking my business elsewhere if you don’t remove the fee…” e-mail. No dice with that either. I called one last time…No dice with that. So I said “Screw Bank of America, I’m just going to transfer my balance to Citibank.” Now I have 0% apr on my Citibank balance until August.
January 16th, 2008 at 10:54 am
“Compared to BOA & Chase, Citibank comes out on top for me”
Mike, that sounds a bit like saying, “Compared to blank mambas and spitting cobras, a diamondback rattlesnake isn’t nearly as venomous.” I do wish you the best of luck, and may the Force be with yu…but do NOT let your guard down with Citibank either.
Lindsey: That sounds like the Citibank I remember..Good luck getting it straightened out, because they tend to keep reporting an inaccuracy like that every three months…usually as soon as you get it OFF your credit report they put it right back on.
Mrs. Micah: Is there a word for two steps beyond “greedy”? They weren’t the only ones who did this, but it seems to be biting them in the backside fatser than the other usual suspects.
January 16th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
I completely understand — for me it was Bank of America, and I was 17. It took me until I was 24 to get rid of the card, and that was by transferring the balance to a different credit card. What a mess.
January 16th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Melanie: I didn’t finally settle with Citibank until 1999 or 2000 (I honestly don’t remember) but they truly will chase (pun intended) you to the ends of the earth to collect as much as they can!
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:19 am
Citi lowered my credit line to $200 above my balance. I only knew because I check my account online. After calling twice it was fixed back to my original credit line.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Don’t hold back now, tell us how you really feel:)
March 24th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
[…] year old college freshman with only a minimum wage part time job at Taco (H)Bell on the weekends. Citibank, that notorious campus predator, snared me young. With a 21% interest rate, I ended up working more than just the weekends, since […]
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:17 pm
I have had a really bad experience every time I call up citibank helpline. Firstly they have thousands of verifications to ask, to start with your credit card no (even after entering it), then the birth date, then the address. Giving address is another story! If I miss 1 line, “Sorry madam, the address does not match our records, please read the statement and tell us the exact address”!! Same response is heard if you forget to mention “Opposite Pizza hut” line. Or even if the PIN code is not given, they do not budge! If I end my address verification at Borivli - 92, she asks, “Which city madam?” Duh!!!
After the address stage is passed, then the last 2 transactions. The individual payments that I have done is not accepted by them, they need the total billed statment amount. And if you fail to give them, they say please get those details and give us a call back!! Horrible!!
When you are kept on hold, its not just a minute or two, more than 5 minutes (calculated), and then you hear the melodious tone…. disconnected!! Repeat the whole story again!
Next, if at all you get through all this, then they are ready to listen to you. Its a real night mare. I hope this is not the case with any other Customer service.
The reason I had called them, of course, was my mistake. I had purchased a product of Rs.490 through one of the vouchers that are attached with the citibank statements. I had booked the product on 22nd Jan ‘08, was informed that it would be received in 10-15 working days. It is April end now, and after 3-4 calls to the customer service, after giving 2 complaint numbers by them, I still am unaware as to what they intend to do.
I was so fed up with the whole thing, I told them to revert the money back, debit it into my account, they said “Sorry madam, we dont do that”! Heights!! thats the way to eat up people’s money and give the best service!
Three cheers to Citibank!!
June 10th, 2008 at 7:48 am
When I was still in school, my personal finance class petitioned that the credit card companies not be allowed on campus. Sadly, the university was making too much money off of them, so they were allowed to stay.
I also think Citibank is the worst of the worst. We have no account with them, but for the better part of a year, I got 6-9 daily phone calls to my cell phone looking for someone else. They wouldn’t stop calling. Half the time you’d pick up the phone to an automated message, or dead air. When you would get a human being, they’d insist that you were the person they were looking for, or tell you they couldn’t help you. (I think the person they were looking for may have had my phone number at some point, but they would not believe that it was NOT me, despite my willingness to send proof!) I even contacted my cell phone company, the better business bureau, and even considered switching phone numbers to get it to stop. It finally did, after numerous hours of phone calls to get things straight. At no point did any Citibank employee apologize for the mistaken identity.
But then the nightmare started again- Just this past week, I’ve gotten 6 more calls from a citibank marketing branch. No answer on the line, and you can’t call back to the number. ARGGGHHH!! I don’t owe these people money, have never, and WILL never be a customer, why won’t they leave me alone?
Count me in as one who will never, ever, ever, do business with Citibank. We tell everyone we can of our experience, hoping people won’t choose to patronize them. I can’t think of a time I’ve ever been more frustrated or disgusted with a company. As an alternative- we’d highly recommend Bank of America, as they seem to be much more customer service oriented.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Has anyone tried to use their online help? It’s funny how the customer rep keeps manipulating the posted messages. Luckily I read the the top of the page telling me to save the messages as a file. They made an error, never sent me a statement and is charging me a late fee. I got the technicians to admit it was their fault, so they gave me the refund. Then i told them to erase it off the records and they changed the same post that previously said they were refunding me. I copied and paste the original post with the same time on it and the customer rep felt salty and changed it back. The very next day, I went back on the site and they changed it again! I had to call customer service rep this time in person to get it straightened out. Their online help is a FRAUD, MANIPULATIVE and UNRELIABLE. How did I get a screen shot of 2 different post of the same time saved on the computer? I can sue them for this?
July 15th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
[…] And while this offer did not come from Citibank, for further reading, college students and parents may also want to click to DebtFree Revolution’s post “I hate Citibank.” […]
July 21st, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I also truly hate Citibank. Specifically, I hate their mortgage branch. TWICE now they’ve tacked on fees to my mortgage that were nothing short of them robbing me. The 1st time was supposedly a late fee for being late on my payment when I was a month AHEAD!
The 2nd time was when I was supposedly late from the 1st time, and they sent out an appraiser, and charged us $84 for it. Since we’d thought we were completely “caught up”, we didn’t pay attention to the late fees they put on our statement, as we thought it was taken care of and the payments just hadn’t caught up to the billing department. Now we owe $132 for that appraiser coming out due to late fees for it!
A word of caution: RECORD…YOUR….PHONE…CONVERSATIONS with these people or they’ll tell you that “no one here would tell you that” or “you can’t PROVE we said that”. Just remember—you were warned.