CitiGroup Credit Cards – High Interest and Bad Customer Service
Posted on | August 30, 2009 | 21 Comments
Recently I missed a payment for my CitiGroup credit card by TWO hours. I immediately contacted Citi and explained the situation and they said there was nothing they could do. I knew that I was going to get an increase in the interest rate on my next credit card statement but I was very interested to see how much. When I got my newest statement I saw that my interest rate had increased from 2.99% to 28.99% for missing one payment by two hours.
I immediately called the customer service line and explained the situation again. Once again, I got absolutely no service and the representative said she could do nothing because the credit card had been closed in July. Of course it had been closed, I refused to use Citi as a credit card company because of their financial practices. Due to this, they refused to make any adjustments to my interest rate.
I informed the representative that they were making a huge mistake and I would make sure to never use CitiGroup again in my life for any financial service. I would also make sure that my friends, family and social network hear about this story and the bad customer service I received. I can say that I am very lucky to write for a major website that has a broad audience. I am reaching out to that audience to tell you this story and urge you to express your concerns with CitiGroup as well.
I am adding CitiGroup to BestBuy and Circuit City as the companies I will never use. Obviously I will have very little trouble not using Circuit City anymore. I am completely fed up with CitiGroup as a company and I actually feel sorry for anyone who has stock in this company. They are destined to struggle because they do not care about their customers. I was a credit card holder for four years and never missed a payment. One late payment by two hours and my interest rate is jacked up over 20%; no thanks Citi.
If any of you have any CitiGroup stories, please post a comment below; I would like to hear how you feel about this financial company.
UPDATE: From the responses I am getting, this situation was all my fault and no fault of CitiGroup. I can understand your feelings but I guess they just don’t see me as a valuable customer. The card was completely paid off and cut up; the only reason I actually carried a balance was the 2.99%. I still believe the operator could have at least let me speak to someone who could make adjustments instead of just blowing me off because the card had been closed.
Author: Jesse Wojdylo
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21 Responses to “CitiGroup Credit Cards – High Interest and Bad Customer Service”
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August 30th, 2009 @ 10:06 pm
Citi pulled then ol’ rate increase when my history was perfect. They almost doubled 7.99% to 15%. I called and asked about the opt-out option, after lambasting them (politely) about their practices. The card would be closed and the rate would stay the same, although I pay off the balance each month. I called them back after a week and asked to have my rate reduced. The lowest they would go is 8.15%, which is ok. Citi is not alone in this bizarro credit world. My other card was at 5.99% and was jacked to 11%, again with perfect history. I opted out of that too, but they are keeping the card open with the stipulation I make no new charges. I will be talking them down as well in the future. It should also be noted I make my payments two weeks in advance.
August 30th, 2009 @ 10:35 pm
You must have been late more than once. I missed one by a week because I put it in a weird spot and I called and had the late fee removed and my rate did not go up. This was just 2 months ago. The customer service rep was was extremely polite and understanding, too.
P.S. I do not work for Citi and this story is 100% true. I think there’s more to your story than what you are giving up.
August 30th, 2009 @ 10:35 pm
Hi I had almost same bad experience with them, with inconsiderable worst service. That’s made me to leave the Citi card.
Taslima: 416-833-8462
August 30th, 2009 @ 10:42 pm
I’m guessing that missing the payment by 2 hours turned it into the next day.
Why would you wait until the last minute to make your payment? You knew about the due date
at least a week before.Citi has a policy miss the due date and it goes up ..Do that with any card and it will go up.
August 30th, 2009 @ 10:44 pm
I just re-read your story. You expect them to be able to adjust the rate on your account which was already CLOSED? And then threaten them about never giving them business again? wtf
August 30th, 2009 @ 10:53 pm
I am just so shocked at the amount of people who have problems with banks in general. It is such a simple setup that I have a hard time understanding how situations like the above written even occur. Two hours seems exaggerated slightly. I’ve met so many people with angry stories about almost any bank I can really think of.
I would suggest not letting your feelings get in the way of the situation as many people do. Your experience alone should not keep people from using Citigroup and will not keep people from using Citi. Remember, it’s a bank, not your friend.
August 31st, 2009 @ 12:26 am
Sounds like you try to bring down major companies that support American economy. Who knows that you miss the relay in Citigroup’s stocks. Dont stupidly talk about Citi stocks which has been trusted by most successful investor like John Paulson. I never ever had problems with Citi’s customer service. If you did late two hours to pay your credit card bill, it is not Citigroup’s problem. Who knows how many times in the past you late to pay it… Just because of your single experience with may be a bad customer service representative you cannot blame whole banking system. BestBuy has one of the best customer service team in the country. I totally disagree with you and totally against if you have undertaken any mission to pull back American economy.
August 31st, 2009 @ 12:42 am
How do you miss by two hours? If you pay electronically, the settlement is 3 days. If you mail the payment, it is 8 days minimum. If you missed it, most banks will give you a one time waver. After that, good luck. Business is business. You signed the paper and you agreed to it.
August 31st, 2009 @ 2:09 am
I am a customer for over 6 years of both Citibank and Citibank MasterCard, which apparently are two different entities that never communicate with one another.
I recently got an offer from Citi MC to transfer balances to their credit card at 0% interest rate for about 10 months. (I must be a pretty good credit risk if I got such an offer, right?)
Like you, I have never missed a payment or gone overdrawn or over my limit on any facility I have from either Citi or Citi MasterCard or from anyone else for that matter. I was interested in transferring a balance, but I did not want to get close to my credit card limit, so I asked online for an increase in my limit. My credit score on all rating agencies is in the Excellent category. I immediately got a response from Citi MasterCard that my increase request was denied with the implication I was not a good credit risk. It was clear to me that I got a canned response and there was no evaluation of my payment history, credit score, etc. I feel pretty much about Citi as you do. They really do not care at all about their customers, but have simply turned into a huge bureaucracy that is pretty much out of tune with the real world.
August 31st, 2009 @ 4:52 am
Jesse,
I’m sorry, but a deadline is a deadline! You have several weeks time to pay your CC bills. When you wait for the very last moment and miss this then, what do you really expect?
And something is wrong with your figures. When your interest rate was jacked up from 2.99% to 28.99% that is more then a 20% increase like you have said. So please recheck and correct your figures.
August 31st, 2009 @ 5:21 am
I don’t buy in to banks being the bad guys in credit card practices. If you pay off your credit card balance every month, which you should anyway…at least most of the time, then you shouldn’t care about your interest rate! Credit cards are one of most risky types of credit for banks to loan out. You don’t expect banks to be more aggressive in making a profit off of customers??? Don’t be a typical American, be like the Japanese or Koreans and have money and not borrow it…
August 31st, 2009 @ 5:34 am
its not only citigroup , i had the same problem with wells fargo.
August 31st, 2009 @ 5:52 am
Apparently, Citi is big enough to receive money from the US Government and not assist or help some US consumers. Citi would probably not exist today if it wasn’t for the bailouts they received. I’m pretty sure they also received other favors from their friends at the Fed and Treasury other than just money. If your card was closed and had a remaining balance, why not make an accommodation for a customer who has paid on time. Goodwill can go a very long way, especially in the environment we are currently in. Too bad for them, I think they’ve been spoiled with the benefits they’ve received but not inclined to pass it on!!!
August 31st, 2009 @ 6:51 am
we are citi bank and citi card customers. never had a bad experience. they are very polite and helpful every time we have called the. its sad to hear when people have bad experiences.
August 31st, 2009 @ 7:28 am
I call shenanigans, on most of this. I work (proudly) for Citi, though not in the same division you’re speaking of.
First of all, how do you miss a payment by 2 hours? Everything is based on business days, so 2 hours is exaggerated. Just cause you made an online payment Friday at 7 pm does not make a payment 2 hours late. The bank (ANY bank) won’t get it until Monday, at best. You got your statement. You read the due date. You missed it. Own up. We all do it, we all pay the consequence.
Secondly, despite my highly suspect thoughts of a 2.99% interest rate with us in the first place (Even my employee cards are 7.9%), you actually expect a company in which you CLOSED your account with, to continue to do you favours as a customer? Newsflash, for someone with at least a little bit of common sense, the reason *any* company does something for a customer, is to increase the bottom line. If you’ve closed an account with a bank, kiss your concessions good-bye. I can’t believe I even had to explain that to someone.
So in turn, yes, this situation was all your fault. Replace Citi with any other bank’s name, you would have ended up with the the same result. If you aren’t going to use their card and make them money, why should they care? Isn’t that just plain old capitalism?
August 31st, 2009 @ 7:38 am
hey friends, i am from asia and i happened to chance upon this blog. one thing different about the mentality of credit card users in asia is that we many of us try to pay off our bills on time and not leave any residual amount behind. credit cards are convenient tools for payment, and not tools for quick loans. most of us are never at the mercy of credit card companies and their threat to increase interest rates. as we have no remaining balance, we can simply terminate their cards. in such a situation, credit card companies are usually more than polite and pleasant and try means to retain customers. we generate fee income for them, but do not saddle them with bad loans.
incidentally, citi has a great reputation in asia. as a foreign bank, many do covet for an account with citi, whether credit, savings or investment. it’s a status to use citi in asia.
August 31st, 2009 @ 8:07 am
I am alos not Citibank customer but it likes others bank. I think you do not know mathematic. Penalty for late payment is due to your habit of delay. How would you use the penalty charges to work out the % of interest? BLAME YOUR SELF BEFORE BLAMING OTHERS.
September 1st, 2009 @ 5:21 pm
This is an interesting example of the effect of customer service, either good or bad. And it may be possible to extrapolate from this experience to form some general conclusions about this organization.
If you believe you have been treated shabbily, ie poor customer service, you want to tell the world. If you believe that you have been well treated, you just assume that you are deserving of nothing less. This is not intended as an indictment, rather it is a comment on all of us as human beings.
Unfortunately many organizations don’t get it. Bad news travels at the speed of light. Good news rarely travels at all. So organizations need to be very cognizant of this. A few experiences that are bad or are perceived to be bad can undo thousands of dollars worth of advertising.
At the moment Citibank seems to have dug itself a deep hole. They are faced with some very challenging issues, very big issues. That may be the reason for losing sight of these basics. Or it may just be an excuse.
September 16th, 2009 @ 10:11 pm
I do not want to get into a whole “evil bank” story, so I will just present my experiences and let you judge.
My paycheck came in close to when my Citibank Mastercard was due; not their problem, definitely my problem and I accept that. I did the responsible thing and overnight expressed the payment, which was received and signed for one full business day prior to the due date, and prior to 5:00pm central time. According to their own terms of service, any payment received at the express processing center before 5:00pm central time should post that same day. Okay, things happen, but I at least had a reasonable expectation that it would post the following business day, on the due date. The payment did not post. I incurred a late fee, and after several phone calls, had to fax proof of signature, AND proof that the express payment address was the same one written on my statement since the CS reps were showing a different address! Six business days later and assurances that my rate will not default and the late fee would be reversed, Citi WAS good to their word. The payment did eventually post. The late fee was reversed and there was no interest rate hike. I do have to say that the customer service MANAGERS were helpful, perhaps because they know a little more about the inner workings. The hows and whys of the payment posting so late I guess will remain a mystery. I’d hate to think that they actually want customers to default, but it leaves one wondering how, after following payment directions to the letter, one still almost ends up on the wrong side of a default rte hike for a “missed” payment that was not really missed.
But this was a real learning experience. One thing I learned is that when in doubt, certified mail is the way to go. With in minutes of a customer service rep telling me I needed proof that the payment was received at the processing center, the post office was able to e-mail the signature to me. Very helpful. Also, certified or cashier’s checks give you something to trace should a payment end up lost. Finally, this little episode (first time I ever had this problem with ANY bill in fifteen or so years of having credit cards) has given me the incentive to 1) pay off those credit cards and 2) SAVE for what I want to purchase rather than use credit.
September 18th, 2009 @ 6:06 pm
It can get better – how about a payment made via Citi’s autopay (which has been setup on the account for 15+ years, no balance ever carried on the card) due on the 17th, debited from the bank on the 17th, and posted in payment history on Citi’s website on the 17th – and yet there are still late fees and interest charges and an automated phone call to my 87 year old grandmother who then completely freaks out?
Because the statement date for the month is also the 17th – and will only take into account transactions made through midnight of the 16th.
Nevermind the fact that the statement clearly says due on the 17th and the autopay will take place on the 17th. (And you can’t pick the date when it’s on autopay – it is automatically on the due date.) And there is no way to tell from the printed statement that they’re going to generate a new statement before the autopay even has a chance to hit the system.
Up until this month, the due date was the 11th and the new statement was generated on the 17th. I can’t figure out if this is a programming screwup or a profit generating exercise.
I’m still waiting for an answer to this from Citi.
September 30th, 2009 @ 12:45 am
@Cindy
I’d like to believe it is all a programming problem or the like, but I smell a rat, or a “happy accident” to be more specific. Let me explain. When I was a child, there was this artist on PBS who taught you how to paint. When he made a mistake, he’d call it a “happy accident”, and use the mistake to enhance whatever he was painting.
I get the sense the same thing happens with banks. If you catch the “happy accident”, great for you, the consumer. After some phone calls and aggravation, no financial harm to you. If you DO NOT catch the “happy accident”, more profit for the banks, lots of financial harm to you. Yes, mistakes and accidents happen. But if the consumer does not catch them, these mistakes and accidents seem to ALWAYS benefit the banks. Hope all works out with your situation. Some advice: When being stonewalled, keep asking for supervisors; move up the food chain so to speak.
Regards