I opened an account with Citibank about a year ago. I chose Citibank because my parents have an account with them and I was told there would be NO service fees. For the first 6 months or so, everything went smoothly and the service was great. I am a student at a community college and I was working part time. I never had much money in my account, but I was told I would not get a service charge because I am a student. Then I started noticing a $20 service charge on my account activity every month. One day I had only $18 in my account, and I went to work. When I went on my lunch, I checked my account out of boredom and found $0 in my account and a service charge that took the $18. I was really upset because I was depending on that $18 to pay for my gas to get back home from work. So I called Citibank, and the person on the phone helped me out with no problem, refunded the money and told me that the service charge would not happen ever again.
I kept banking with them without a service charge for a few more months, and then the service charge showed up again. Once again I called and told the person on the phone that I was told last time that it would never show up again, and I asked for a refund. He told me he did not have the authority to do so and that I had to go to the branch and resolve the problem. Of course, lazy me never went to the branch and I let it go on.
When I lost my job this last October, I had money saved to last for a few months for all my bills, thinking I would easily find another job. It took me a lot longer than planned, so I only had about $9 left in my account. I checked my account a few weeks later and my account was -$45. I was extremely upset, so I went to the branch, spoke to a supervisor and told him that my account should NOT be overdrafted and that last time, when I had only $18, which was not the normal amount of $20, they only took the $18 and it did not overdraft. This time it did, which made no sense to me. He ALSO told me he did not have the authority to reverse the overdraft and service charge, but his manager did, who was supposed to be in the next day. Remember that I was unemployed and had already wasted too much gas on talking about money that is supposed to be mine, and I received NOTHING. So I never went back, because I wanted to wait until I had another job so I could drive to the branch, cancel my account and sign up at another bank all on one day.
Now that I have a full-time job, I cannot go to the bank this week. I signed up with Bank of America, which also promised no fees, and I hope it stays that way. I also called Citibank today during my lunch, and they could not help me with my problem. I am tired of dealing with this for so long. So lesson learned: don't bank with Citibank if you are a student or just someone trying to make it from paycheck to paycheck. They are keeping us more poor than we deserve to be!
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