It is sadly comforting that so many people are as upset with Citibank as I am. I have been a Citi customer for over 10 years. I racked up high balances and paid them off, never late. Then I racked up more and continued to pay. It is the same old story.
Last September I got a call from Citi asking if I would like to upgrade from Driver's Edge to Dividend, with 0% balance transfers. I said sure, and I transferred $3,200 to another credit card. I received Citi cards in the mail and assumed they were replacements for my old ones.
I moved in October and set up mail forwarding through the post office. I began receiving all of my mail at the new address except for Citi's. When I realized in early November that I had never received a statement, I called them and gave my new address and phone number. I started receiving Citi statements soon after and paid monthly on time.
Last week I received a call from GC Services, a collection agency, stating that I owed $3,691 on a defaulted loan to Citi. Apparently, that phone call with Citi last September opened a brand new account that was not linked to my existing account, as I had understood. I never received any statements on this new account or any notice that it had defaulted.
I called Citi. They said they had tried to contact me at my old phone number in November and were aware that all statements on the new account had been sent back to them.
I asked the representative why they did not contact me at my current address and phone number, since I had notified them over three months earlier. I was told they go only by account number, not by name or Social Security number, and since I had called to change my address and phone number on the older account only, and not the new one (never mind that I was unaware it was a new one), I am liable. Apparently I was supposed to make two separate calls, one for each account, because name and Social Security number are not linked. Yet there was never any notification about this minor but costly detail, only "customer is responsible to notify Citi of changes in address."
I talked to a so-called manager in the department that sent this to GC Services, and I was told nothing could be done, even though Citi had had my new information on file since early November. Now I have a defaulted loan with $500 worth of fees, and they closed my other account. My credit history also consists of paying off a $20,000 school loan, a $40,000 mortgage, an $80,000 home equity loan, and over $20,000 in credit card loans, and I am still going.
At this point, with my kind of credit history, I am tempted to settle both Citi accounts and let any future loan officer wonder why every loan I have had has been perfectly repaid except Citi's. Let Citi be the glaring discrepancy in my credit report, and maybe it will be understood that it is due to their own bad business and not my lack of integrity as a consumer.
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