I thought the following might be of interest to those who make heavy use of Citi credit cards....
Be warned....
Margaret
*********************************************************************** Citi Cards charged me a late fee when my scheduled payment posted one day prior to the due date (according to my Citi statement). Upon checking with my bank, I learned Citi Cards made no attempt to pull the funds as scheduled. (If they had, my Fidelity account's history would show either a debit or a "rejected - insufficient funds" notation. Fidelity has no record of either.)The real problem is getting the erroneous fee removed. Citi Cards requires a letter from my bank stating they have no record of any attempt by Citi Cards to withdraw funds. The problem gets stickier, because my bank account is a Fidelity SmartCash account. Fidelity uses various "member banks" to hold and process funds, in my case, XXXXX bank. Citi Cards requires this letter to be written on XXXXX Bank's letterhead. As I am not a customer of XXXXX Bank (Fidelity is), I can obtain no such letter from XXXXX Bank. Now Fidelity is willing to write such a letter (also explaining their financial relationship with XXXXX), but this does not satisfy Citi Cards' requirement!
Supervisor Kim at Citi Cards tells me they only apply a returned check fee if a debit attempt is made and rejected. Even though their own transaction history shows no transaction was rejected, Citi Cards still requires this impossible-to-obtain letter from XXXXX stating as such! My account is with Fidelity, my service relationship and account history is with Fidelity, yet because my account has an XXXXX routing transit number, a letter from Fidelity is insufficient to have this $39 returned check fee removed.
I have had accounts with Citi Cards spanning 30 years. I have an excellent credit history and always pay my balance in full each month. Further, I charge everything I possibly can, as it usually makes monthly bill paying simpler, and I like the rewards. Even though I currently have two very active accounts with Citi Cards (and Citi knows I will close both if they don't removed the fee), Citi Cards insists on this letter from XXXXX. Citi claims that because the fee was charged, there must have been a rejection ... even though their transaction history shows none!
Citi's Kim has agreed to have her manager, Mr. Troy, call me within 24 hours. Fidelity has been most helpful offering to do a conference call with Citi Cards if they will accept this as proof they failed to attempt the scheduled debit on 5/19. But if Mr. Troy fails to call or still insists on a letter from XXXXX, my only recourse is to either pay Citi Cards the $39 or close my accounts, pay my balances (save the $39) and allow my excellent credit history to be blemished.
IMNSHO, Citi Cards is simply attempting to hang onto fees by requiring card holders jump through expensive and exhausting hoops to have them removed (even when those charges result from errors by their own institution). In my last phone call I learned from Fidelity that Citi Cards is *just now* attempting to debit my account for the payment I scheduled for 5/19. Interesting, eh? ;-)
Citi's supervisor Kim tells me they have a department dedicated to processing fee-removal request letters from banks. Even if they didn't have a dedicated department, the cost of banks having to write letters and Citi's having to process them costs well over $39 even if we discount time spent by the card holder. I've been on the phone with Citi and Fidelity most of this morning, and I still have an uphill battle to fight. Certainly fighting this battle is not really worth my time, but it's the principle that concerns me. I can still pay my mortgage and my grocery bill even if I pay the $39. But what about people deeply affected by our devastated economy? That $39 could make the difference between eating or not. I thought this new credit card legislation was supposed to protect consumers. Clearly Citi Cards has figured out a new way to bleed its card holders.
Some specifics:
My Citi payment was due on 5/20, and I scheduled a payment for the full balance for 5/19. (I scheduled the payment on 4/24 when I received my online statement and recorded the confirmation number.) I follow this same process each month, and until now Citi has been pulling my payment without incident. On the day in question (5/19), I had plenty of available cash in my SmartCash account to cover debits, more than enough to cover Citi's .