I want everybody to know about this one. DO NOT USE AUTO PAY, citibank says it's a great way to pay your bill, but they are being deceptive and will rip you off. I am an active duty soldier, in August shortly after coming home from a deployment, I recieved a telephone call from a Citibank representative telling me a payment had not been made for that month.
I told him the situation of my deployment and I could send in the payment no problem (it wasn't because I couldn't afford to make the payment). Then he said because of my active duty status and me having to make address changes everytime I deployed, I could do auto pay. He said I could do auto pay for the next 6 months and during that 6 months, it would be interest free and then by January (that would be the end of the agreement), I could decide to continue the auto pay at my current interest rates. I thought that would be a great program, I wouldn't have to worry about my bill getting paid for the next 6 months interest free.
My first citibank statement arrived along with a memo saying that 110.00 had been taken out of my bank. However, my statement still had the same balance that it did BEFORE the payment AND it had charged me 85.00 in interest fees. I called citibank, after being connected and rec-connected to everybody at citibank, a representative told me it was a mistake and that she would take the interest fees off and I should see the adjustment on the next billing statement.
The following month, I recieved the statement and the memo saying 110.00 was taken out of my bank account. Looking at the billing statement, the balance was the exact same balance that it had been in July (before the auto pay started) and another 85.00 in interest fees. It was like they had just photocopied July's balance. I had stopped using the card a year previous to this, I just wanted to pay it off so, I knew it wasn't because of any new purchases. I called again, and again, I was told it was an error because instead of the withdrawal code they were suppose to be using, they had used some incorrect code and they would fix it and that I would get all the interest fees from the last months to be credited to my account. This continued into the next month.
The following month was November and I had recieved a statement showing that I had to make a double payment because they were unable to recieve a payment from October which again, my bank account showed that a payment was taken from it. I called again and once again, the representative said it was a withdrawal code and they would fix it. I told her don't auto pay from account any more, it's just becoming more of a problem and I didn't care for it, I would send in a check for 222.00 and I did. My December statement arrived and showed several payments were made to my citi bank account but the balance didn't reflect it. It was still exactly the same as it was on the month's previous.
Finally, I was so frustrated at seeing my citibank balance remain exactly (to the penny) the same and my bank account being withdrawn from, I refused to talk to anybody else except for the supervisor. I told her what was going on and what was promised to me. She was not at all customer friendly. She told me she didn't know why I was promised the auto pay that I didn't qualify for it, I had to have bad credit problems to even qualify and that my account history (before August) was showing I was paying my bill with no problems. Then she told me I had to fax all my billing statements with the memos and my bank account statements to her to show that this issue even existed.
After a lengthy heated conversation. She also proceded to tell me that my citibank account hadn't had any payments on it after August. I told her I had the proof showing that 110.00 was being withdrawn every month from my bank account. That woman never even attempted to help me find out why my citibank account was still reading the same exact balance month after month, yet there was never any late fees or over the limit fees, just interest fees and yet, she claimed my account hadn't recieved a payment since August (and this was December) and my payments never went up to show that a payment wasn't made (with the exception of that one time), my bank account was showing payments being made, and still no help.
I told her to completely close my account and that every active duty soldier I knew was going to know about citibank's practices and not to use their fraudulent services. I also told her not to use the auto pay method in January I would simply send in the payment. Needless to say, nothing I said made a differenc to this woman or this credit card company because I still recieved the statement and memo saying they had withdrawn 111.00 out of my checking account. They couldn't even tell me where all that money that was coming from my bank to their company was going. To me, they are as bad as con artist and I am just sorry I still have a balance left on my citibank card and the money that was being auto payed to them wasn't credited to that balance being payed off.
If they can rip me off, lie to me, decieve me, and treat me the way that that supervisor treated me, they don't deserve to be in business and to anyone who reads this, please take my advice and do not open an account with citibank and to any citibank representatives who reads this, you people don't deserve people like me who help protect your rights as a human being and when I'm deployed I won't be thinking of your lives being protected back home. You disgust me.
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