Citibank - Non Existant Customer Service

[JesterinOz]

Recently looked into getting a new Gold Credit Card with a rewards program and travel insurance. From the detail the two options that suited me the most were Citibank Gold Credit Card and Earth +. I ended up going with Citibank because I already had a Citibank Ready Credit Account with them. I had $16500 credit limit on the Ready Credit Account (balance was actually in the black by a small degree) and had received the regular flyers suggesting I get the Gold Credit Card, so I didn't think there would be any problems. I applied and was declined?? Why? Because I already had a card with a high limit. No discussion (I would have been happy to split the limits). I then spoke to someone at call centre and at their suggestion I put in another application specifying I wanted the Ready Credit card and the Gold Credit each with $5000 limits. Result - Declined Again. Why? It is Citibank policy that was once you are declined you have to wait 6 months before they will look at a second application. When dealing with their robotic call centre staff, reason went out the window. I ended up cancelling my Ready Credit account with them on the spot. This was the last straw for me. I should also point that all the communication during this saga was initiated by me, there was never any contact from them advising that the applications were declined. The other reason for the change of heart is Citibank putting their foreign exchange fees up 2.5% as of the 1 Sep. This all follows on from other horror stories I have heard from friends and relatives in trying to deal with Citibank.

End result I am now the new recipient of an Earth + card.

When you are looking at the different credits take heed that customer service at Citibank is non-existant and you will no doubt end up banging your head against a wall. As someone else said in an earlier post, they are good at marketing and signing you up (and forking out commisions which they did in my case) but nothing else!

 

[Chicken]

Yep, that's the price you pay, for using the only non platinum Visa / MasterCard now in Australia which gives 1:1 QF point

Earth MasterCard is 2:1

 

[JesterinOz]

Thats true, Citibank Gold Card is 1:1 and Earth + is 2:1 after November. However, if you travel regularly the lower rates for intl transactions on the Earth+ card is a bonus! If Iam saving 1.5-2% on my OS transactions I think I would be infront and negates the better rewards deal with CB.

My point above is how much is your time worth, are 5000 or 10000 extra points each year (for example) worth the hassle of dealing with idiots?

 

[Chicken]

My point above is how much is your time worth, are 5000 or 10000 extra points each year (for example) worth the hassle of dealing with idiots?

If it's just 5000 points per year difference, then no, avoid Citibank, in fact, maybe cheaper to just get a no fee credit card.

Most people who posts here, like myself, put through a lot of business expenses on cards. Just a wild guess, probably between $10k - 50k a month, so we are talking about extra 60k to 300k QF points per year, which is a lot

 

[one9]

Recently looked into getting a new Gold Credit Card with a rewards program and travel insurance. From the detail the two options that suited me the most were Citibank Gold Credit Card and Earth +. I ended up going with Citibank because I already had a Citibank Ready Credit Account with them. I had $16500 credit limit on the Ready Credit Account (balance was actually in the black by a small degree) and had received the regular flyers suggesting I get the Gold Credit Card, so I didn't think there would be any problems. I applied and was declined?? Why? Because I already had a card with a high limit. No discussion (I would have been happy to split the limits). I then spoke to someone at call centre and at their suggestion I put in another application specifying I wanted the Ready Credit card and the Gold Credit each with $5000 limits. Result - Declined Again. Why? It is Citibank policy that was once you are declined you have to wait 6 months before they will look at a second application. When dealing with their robotic call centre staff, reason went out the window. I ended up cancelling my Ready Credit account with them on the spot. This was the last straw for me. I should also point that all the communication during this saga was initiated by me, there was never any contact from them advising that the applications were declined. The other reason for the change of heart is Citibank putting their foreign exchange fees up 2.5% as of the 1 Sep. This all follows on from other horror stories I have heard from friends and relatives in trying to deal with Citibank.

I agree generally that Citibank have bad customer service, but in this example, I believe Citibank did what most other banks would do.

The credit criteria for credit cards is very complex, and the people who set the criteria, are a small group of people who enter in complex calculations etc. which will take into account most circumstances.

The people who actually assess credit cards don't understand nor have the authority to change the complex rules that the computer credit criteria use.

Sure, your example makes sense to us, but not to the credit criteria which were drawn up for most people. It would be unwise to allow the credit assessors who do not have a full understanding of the complex system to be able to offer you an exception. They could easily get it wrong and offer a high risk customer credit where they should not have it.

Most credit cards and banks have a system that will put a heavy negative weight on the scoring of your application if you have recently had a declined application with them.

I believe that it comes down to the basic idea that automatic systems will do a good job with the majority of people, but they can never take into account all circumstances.

 

[Chicken]

I had the need to contact Citibank on two items the day before, and I really did not want to call their hopeless call center, so what can I do?

Well, what if I e-mail them???

So I sent them 2 messages on 2 different items. They replied the next day, and one answer was accurate, the other one LOOKS correct.

Maybe messages from Internet are answered by Australian staffs who actually read them and answer like a human (not scripted)?

 

[hedge]

My family have a lot of dealing with citibank (4 ccs, home loan etc). Some of the emails they send back are hilarious. Most words are spelt wrong and all words are written in lower case.

So we thought we would go into the sydney city branch. Even worse. Full of indians who have very fresh accents and absolutely no idea what they are talking about.

I find dealing with the filipinos quite pleasurable as they dont try to speak over me or continually upsell.

 

[excite]

My family have a lot of dealing with citibank (4 ccs, home loan etc). Some of the emails they send back are hilarious. Most words are spelt wrong and all words are written in lower case.

So we thought we would go into the sydney city branch. Even worse. Full of indians who have very fresh accents and absolutely no idea what they are talking about.

I find dealing with the filipinos quite pleasurable as they dont try to speak over me or continually upsell.

So, how to call the Citi service Center in Filipine, is there different phone numbers? Or you just got a Filipino to answer your call by chance.

 

[hedge]

I was under the impression the call centre was in the Philippines.

 

[pauly7]

My family have a lot of dealing with citibank (4 ccs, home loan etc). Some of the emails they send back are hilarious. Most words are spelt wrong and all words are written in lower case.

So we thought we would go into the sydney city branch. Even worse. Full of indians who have very fresh accents and absolutely no idea what they are talking about.

I find dealing with the filipinos quite pleasurable as they dont try to speak over me or continually upsell.

I use the Citibank/Citigold branch in Chatswood and they are excellent.

They have a mixture of multi-lingual assistants as Chatswood has a high amount of Asians living in the area, but also some great staff from the UK/Ireland working there,

 

[vilemerchant]

I'm convinced most of them don't actually speak english. They're just trained to recognise key words and parrot pre-defined responses.

 

[Evan]

I'm convinced most of them don't actually speak english. They're just trained to recognise key words and parrot pre-defined responses.

hahaha

Reminds me much of a recent stay in the Sofitel Siagon ! 2 of us went through through 4 or 5 staff member asking the same set of questions, (do you want ice, would you like room service etc) because they could not understand out very simple request but something not on there standard sheet to be recognised !

E

 

[eecchhoo]

I Did call Citibank Customer service number in order to close down card.

That time i called around 9am and i got a US citibank staff and he was really helpful and waived the fee on the spot.

So maybe there are some calles routed to US as well?