I lost all my cards on 5-Apr-09 Sun and called up Citibank to block my cards.
I had 2 credit cards from Citibank, which I got reissued to be delivered to my new address in Bangalore.
Till date, this is the status of what I have received -
Credit Card ending in 9016 - card, pin
Credit Card ending in 6016 - no card, no pin
Debit Card ending in 0214 - card, no pin
Now, I have an ICICI account which I was using for ATM withdrawals, and using my 1 Credit Card(9016) for transactions and paying through cash deposits in ATMs.
On the 6016 credit card that I have not received till date, this is what Citibank has done -
13-Apr-09 - 775 - SI Debit Minimum Amount
19-Apr-09 - 994 - Interest+ Service Tax
13-May-09 - 1678 - SI Debit Minimum Amount
20-May-09 - 1098 - Interest+ Service Tax
13-Jun-09 - 1484 - SI Debit Minimum Amount
19-Jun-09 - 1039 - Interest+ Service Tax
19-Jul-09 - 1062 - Interest+ Service Tax
19-Jul-09 - 772 - Late Payment Fee+ Service Tax
21-Jul-09 - 18542 - SI Debit Full Amount
19-Aug-09 - 491 - Interest+ Service Tax
Now, there are 7 things which are inefficient, unethical and pissing off -
1) Out of 3 cards and 3 pins, 2 cards and 1 pin reached - the others never reached
that’s a 50% success rate over 4 months
2) Lack of access to 6016 card details prevents me from paying, and they keep charging me interest for a card that I have declared as lost 4 months ago
I refuse to make payments for a card that I don’t even have, that I haven’t even seen, that I have never received.
3) Every month, they first debit amount, then charge Interest+ Service Tax
In Jul-09, they charge Interest+ Service Tax first, then debit amount
4) Every month, they debit minimum amount
In Jul-09, they debit 18K instead of average 1-2K
Their explanation is that because no payment happened for more than 1 month, they debited the entire amount - what they don’t realize is that no payment happened BECAUSE they didn’t debit on time like they were doing earlier
5) By debiting 18K, they put my Bank Account into negative balance
I want to get account details but Call Center is unable to give details because my bank account is now locked
6) Even then, they didn’t debit Full Amount
They left outstanding in my account, and are now charging interest in Aug-09
7) When I call up to complain, they tell me that I should have called and told them their card has returned back tothem - how am I supposed to know where their card is - they are the ones sending it, they should know!
One advice - never lose your wallet, because that will mean that Citibank will screw you so badly that you will never want to deal with them again.
I always thought I would be a Citibank customer for life - but I don’t see that happening now.