Citigroup Private Bank

Facebook & twitter have snapshot of how many tries it took before I was able to make a payment ever since citibank went to speech instead of touch dialing Years ago I even called and told them I was not comfortable stating my account # or social security info where someone could overhear me. With my unfortunate accent the machine just does not recognize my speech.
CITIBANK AND MOST COMPANIES JUST DON'T CARE
Thousands of MEDICARE part d members are getting frustrated trying to get their overpriced medications and the machines don't recognize birthdays and other info

We've had at least one Citi-backed credit card for decades. We; re giving up on Citi and moving to Amex.
Issues:
1. The customer service line is poor. It is automated with not-quite-working voice recognition. It is infuriating.
2. Their choice of security questions for online accounts does not work for joint accounts (Heaven forfend that their customers might actually be married.)
If they allowed more than one online account (one for each person, say), this would be workable, but they don't. And, the extra security questions get asked in the situation of a session timeout, so having the login and password are not enough.
3. Their fraud detection, although laudable in intent, seems mainly to detect that we're actually using the card and then gets in the way, forcing us to deal with their customer service line. Part of the problem seems to be that we don't use the card often (geez, I wonder why).
4, There used to be an app that let you generate virtual card numbers. These are very handy for things like trial offers and such that you don't want to renew or have a hassle to cancel. They apparently broke it in an apparent attempt to make it more secure. I can no longer use it. Wasted more than hour, much of it on the phone with their their service line before completely giving up.

Given the widespread problems with stolen/hacked personal information, unwanted charges, phone scams, and supposedly "free" trials, here's how I pay for my online shopping.

CitiBank issues credit cards [see: www.citi.com] with an optional feature they call VIRTUAL ACCOUNT NUMBERS. Plus, their website allows cardholders to sign up for account "notifications" to be sent via e-mail or as text messages.

After you login to your CitiBank online account you can create one or more brand new and unique 16-digit credit card account numbers, each with a specified maximum dollar limit (for example $50) and expiration date (for example 2- or 8-months from now). Each Virtual number is good for use by just one merchant.

When an online merchant asks for your credit card information, you simply provide the newly-created Virtual number, its expiration date, and (if requested) the 3-digit CVV/CVC number. When the merchant charges your Virtual Account, CitiBank's online data (and any notifications via e-mail or text message) will show that activity within about 10-seconds. (Fast!)

In my experience, the best parts of all this are:
-- I know immediately when my account is charged, and for how much.
-- If a hacker steals my Virtual Number, my primary credit card information is not at risk.
-- By setting a maximum dollar limit, I can avoid the "surprise" of unwanted recurring charges.
-- I can close my Virtual Account at any time. (Meanwhile, my primary account remains open and ready to issue new Virtual numbers.)

This has been working for me for a couple of years.

Do not use them! Terrible customer service. If you go into the branch they're nice buts thats it don't expect much in terms of using them for business, loans etc---they nickle and dime you to death like all banks nothing great about them people should stop using banks for bill pay and to hold your money it only benefits the bank I'm not just a angry bad credit person I have way above average credit rating and they put you though the ringer for a loan or refi even though I had them for my mortage for over 15 years and never late and charged me for an apprasial --they strung me along for 6 months I left went to another company closed in 45 days!

An exemplary example of a horrible customer service experience. Every company has a bad apple... but usually you can bypass the intellectually-challenged agent to speak to a superior who can assist in solving your problem. Not so with Citicards. The financial institution credited my Electronic payment (made in same format for at least 11 consecutive months prior) to the WRONG account. When I called to speak to customer service to straighten out the issue, I wasted 30 plus minutes of my life speaking to an ineffective and incapable agent who could not resolve my problem nor allow me to speak to his supervisor because "he was my supervisor". Instead of banging my head against the wall by continuing to speak to the agent, I gave up and will have to start from scratch again with a new call. Unfortunately, I was not able to file a complaint on this "supervisor" since I was prohibited from speaking to his "supervisor", "boss", " superior" or anything else his narrow little mind could interpret to be in a position above him in his call center.

I have a Citi credit card and I *had* a Citi bank account until this past week. I opened my account almost 10 years ago and enjoyed some good benefits (ThankYou points, which could be converted to cash for online bill pay, etc.). However, over the past year, Citibank has really declined and is now sticking it to customers. ThankYou points for banking are no longer available unless you have high balances in your account or have an upper tier (e.g., high balance or other requirements) account or if you in some other way give Citibank your money (give--as in NEVER get it back--through fees). Also, it is difficult to avoid montly fees for banking unless you meet the balance requirements or have direct deposit AND online bill pay activity each month. I say NO THANK YOU to Citibank. I closed my account.

I still have a Citi credit card. It's not that great, so I don't use it often. They DO now offer a new credit card that gives you 2% cash back (Double Cash card, I think is what it's called). That's a pretty good deal compared to other cards out there, but any time you open a new credit card, it hits your credit report/score negatively, so I tend to only open a card when the deal is spectacular (I'm still considering the Double Cash card, but it is not compelling enough for me to act yet).

Back to banking: I recommend looking into a local credit union if you want to be able to bank and not pay excessive fees. Most credit unions offer a MUCH better deal than the banks do now.

These people have no compassion. I accidently paid the wrong amount on my Macy's card and even though I told them, even had my bank call them so they would stop the transaction, not only did they not stop, they attempted 3x to take $4500 out of my account over a 2 week period, even though they were told wayy in advance this payment was done in error. Every bill I needed to pay for the past 2 weeks has been returned from my account NSF because of this, these multiple attempts to take this money out left my account in the negative, the fees incurred on both ends have been insane. Be aware, if you pay your bills online through a companies online pay system outside of your bank, be cautious not to make a mistake because the financial institution will not care, and they will try to debit 3x regardless. You will get 2x the fees for each attempt they make that is not successful, they don't care how big or small the amount is. This is a horrible policy, they should have stopped with their attempts upon me notifying that it was a mistake. Any card that I have held by citibank is getting closed. Done with this nightmare of a bank. I did a little research and they have already been involved in several class action law suits over fees and such, maybe this will be another.

CitiBusiness is full of people that racially profile African Americans citizens. I was a victim of scam and reported it to their fraud department. Once they heard my voice, they did everything but helped me. It seemed like they were trying to help the person that scammed me by making sure I do not have access to the information that I asked for/ needed in order to get my money back from the scammer. Under 2 days I was surprised that when I called to follow up, they told me that the case was closed. They said that they investigated the case and were unable to retrieve the money from the scammer because the person withdrew all of the money from their account. I asked them to send me a document in writing stating what they told me orally because a place I filed a complaint asked me to upload proof of what my bank said because the scammer was giving contradictory information. I called CitiBusiness Fraud department several times and was given different conflicting information every time. I spoke to several different staff eg. Janette with code TRT071 who is the manager of the fraud department, Rosa TRT012, Rosa TRT017, James who is the supervisor of the customer service department. They all gave contradictory information that does not match what the person before said, which is a proof of bias. This bank has racist employees that discriminates and preys on against African Americans. They run the bank like a prison facility when it comes to African American customers. They are not trustworthy, and I urge any African American individual/ entrepreneur who wants to establish any account with Citibank to consider other banks. Most of their staff are Hispanic Americans, who are totally biased and have nothing but natural hatred and disrespect against African American people. When you complain about racial profiling or racial intimidation, in order to make the racial aspect disappear, they will counter you by bringing the one black staff they have on the phone, who will further intimidate you by saying they themselves are black and continue harassing you. This is the new Jim Crow. CitiBank is trying to make the claims of racial profiling go away by any means necessary. I urge you to look into other banks.