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Citicards Complaint - CITICARDS CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS - AAdvantage Mastercard
AAdvantage Mastercard - Complaint
For my statement closing on February 18, 2005, my balance was $1684.88. I mistakenly wrote the check for $1,681.88, which was a mere $3 difference, or 0.18% of the balance. Plus, it was clearly a human error! Therefore, I was surprised to see a $14.48 finance charge on my March 18th statement. Was I being charged 5x the amount of my mistake!?? Since when did the Fed interest rate rise to 500%??? There is a word for that: USURY
Since I have had pretty good service with Citibank prior to this incident, I thought this was perhaps a computer mistake and should be easily repairable through a phone call. I made my first call to customer service on April 18th. The rep was at first resistant to my argument that $15 of penalty over $3 of difference was absurd, but after a long negotiation, he agreed to manually override it on the computer.
So, you can imagine my surprise when opening my April 18th statement, I found not only no cancellation of the previous finance charge of $14.48, but in addition, an extra $1.44 charge, bringing the total to almost $16 for my $3 clerical error!
I called the customer service again on April 28th. A lady named Erica answered the phone and explained that the charge was not a mistake. She was not only unsympathetic, but frankly, also stupid. Does Citibank not train their staff that “the customer is always right”?? Where is the service in customer service? I told Ms. Erica to cancel my account and she was unmoved. If Citi indeed records its phone lines for training purposes, perhaps my conversation on April 28th would be good reference.
It is ridiculous for Citibank to be so greedy on $16 to lose a long-time loyal customer and stockholder. I am very disappointed, and I have cancelled my Citibank AAdvantage World Mastercard. I am also contemplating canceling all my other Citi-affiliated accounts.
Since I have had pretty good service with Citibank prior to this incident, I thought this was perhaps a computer mistake and should be easily repairable through a phone call. I made my first call to customer service on April 18th. The rep was at first resistant to my argument that $15 of penalty over $3 of difference was absurd, but after a long negotiation, he agreed to manually override it on the computer.
So, you can imagine my surprise when opening my April 18th statement, I found not only no cancellation of the previous finance charge of $14.48, but in addition, an extra $1.44 charge, bringing the total to almost $16 for my $3 clerical error!
I called the customer service again on April 28th. A lady named Erica answered the phone and explained that the charge was not a mistake. She was not only unsympathetic, but frankly, also stupid. Does Citibank not train their staff that “the customer is always right”?? Where is the service in customer service? I told Ms. Erica to cancel my account and she was unmoved. If Citi indeed records its phone lines for training purposes, perhaps my conversation on April 28th would be good reference.
It is ridiculous for Citibank to be so greedy on $16 to lose a long-time loyal customer and stockholder. I am very disappointed, and I have cancelled my Citibank AAdvantage World Mastercard. I am also contemplating canceling all my other Citi-affiliated accounts.
Comments:
Posted by Slimjim on 2005-04-28:
I made the same mistake once. They base finance charges on balances for 2 billing cycles, so they still got you for the larger balance for the first 30 days. Because of the $3, you left a balance, hence no grace period. I thought it was pretty cheesy too and since knowing the ground rules, never made that mistake again.
Posted by bill on 2005-04-28:
The customer is NOT always right. However in this situation, Citibank should have reversed the finance charge. You were only short $3.00 on a payment over $1600.00.
Posted by crazyiufan on 2005-04-30:
No, honestly the customer is most of the time the stupid one. It's just the underpaid, under-appreiciatted employees who have to deal with it. I can only imagine having to teach math to undereducated customers every day. Have you never had a loan or a credit card in your life? You always, unless you pay in full every month, get a final bill for interest. It's a well-known fact. Maybe you should do a little research before bringing out the 'stupid' card.
Posted by bcgang on 2007-11-02:
For your information, Interest is calculated based on you average daily balance. When you didn't pay your account off before your due date you interest showed up on your next statement. Even if you had paid the entire balance off you would have received an interest charge. For example, if you carry a balance from October 1st to October 31st you get charged interest for each day. when your new bill is printed on November 1st, the interest you accrued October 1st - October 31st is then placed on your bill. So infact you didn't get charged interest for the 3 dollars, you got charged interest on your entire balance. If you paid using cash, then you would not have to pay Citi Cards for the service of loaning you money.
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