Citibank - is this CC procedure right?

Bitstring , from the wonderful person John-Smith said

So vote with your feet already. It's not like getting a new CC is even vaguely difficult these days. You might want to write to them and tell them what you are doing, and why. How they choose to implement their CC security is up to them. Whether you put up with what they decide is up to you.

Sounds like a pain. I was asked additional questions once when I used a cc for the first time in a shop (after lots of online purchases)

I went with a group of friends to Portugal. The Guesthouse didn't take plastic I found out a day or so before I had to pay. This meant getting a fair sum of money from the cash machines, quite a bit on the RBS CC - at 295 Euros a time (the machine limit) This could mean getting the cash putting the card back in and repeating it. Because I had other things to do I did this at a number of places across the city. This I admit could look suspect.

The RBS phoned me at "home" i.e. in the UK, a couple of times. i didn't get the message until I got back. they never rang while I was there so I never spoke to them. Never any other problem.

Yes, that's normal procedure -- and it's for your own benefit, as it's an anti-fraud measure.

You can insist on having them set your mobile phone as your primary contact number. They will wriggle, and you may need to escalate it to a manager (I did), but it can and will be done if you're firm enough. It worked for me.

Jon

with my CC I tend to inform them when I go on holiday, still goes T*ts up often as not but you at least make them responsible for not using their intelligence and trying the mobile. not a lot of help after the fact but may help in the future??

How's that for your own benefit? If you care for your card, then the only fraud that can occur is cloning - something that the bank really should be taking the steps to prevent, as there's nothing I as a cardholder can do about it.

No, if the bank has both numbers, they should call both numbers, they certainly shouldn't cancel the card until you get in touch, as the OP suggested when on holiday that is both extremely inconvenient and expensive.

Citibank are pretty poor here. First Direct for example, are happy to call mobiles if they don't get through on land line, I've also had them make the merchant phone for verification (when they then chat to you to check you are the person making the purchase) Equally when abroad and they leave a message, I've even emailed them a local phone number in the country (south africa) and they've called it.

The OP's citibank experience certainly seems extremely inconvenient and very anti-customer service.

Jim.

You'd be astonished just how quickly a thief can work up transactions on a stolen card. And it sounds like you'd be astonished how easy it is to steal a card.

Chip'n'PIN goes some way to defeating cloning, but it won't work until all cards and C&P.

In any case, it benefits you whether or not you are careful with your own cards, because other people aren't, and we all get to pay as a result. To recoup their losses, card merchant service providers have to increase their percentage charge, and that finds its way to the bottom line when you look at the price tag next time you buy.

Fraud and theft cost us all a *substantial* amount of money -- even non-CC users, since the price effect affect them too. If CC companies didn't take anti-fraud precautions, they'd be failing in their duty of care to reduce our costs as customers of theirs, and of their merchant clients.

Jon

However, at the end of the day, one is still stuck with a situation where the bank refuses to authorise all transactions until the cardholder has made a phone call to their call centre - this may be impractical or impossible if abroad, and he may not even be aware that he needs to make the call.

Carrying more than one card is the obvious way, and this has saved me from problems many times.

This is just one facet of Citibank's crappy procedures. Another one is this: if you spoil (i.e. not use) more than about 10 cheque numbers over about 5 years (easily done), they put a stop (without telling you) on sending you cheque books. The justification which I got from their monkey (probably in the Philippines) was that somebody could have stolen those cheques and might use them one day.

When I originally went to Citibank, they offered good current a/c interest, £10k overdraft and a £10k VISA card. The last two are now history for any new accounts, and I have to haggle to get them renewed.

I have opened another account now with another bank but who can tell if they won't do the same thing? In this age of robot-staffed customer interfaces, and with anyone (in most firms) with more than half a brain being as distant from the customer interface as they can be moved, and with most firms offering pretty much the same product, what one is really purchasing is customer service.

It's like the endless threads in computer newsgroups about "who is the best ISP"? The physical reality is that an ISP is just a room/building with a load of gear and some fibres running into BT's network, and all the rest from there on is 100% BT. One could make a similar argument for online banking. The only thing that differentiates these firms is customer service.

The problem, increasingly, is that there is nowhere left to run.