outpaddling

My wife and I each have Citi Platinum Select AAdvantage World Elite MasterCards, both with $85 annual fees waived for many years.
The credit limit is $100,000 and we charge over $250,000 annually, paying the balance in full each month with automatic payments from
a Citibank account. We've obviously earned a ton of AAdvantage miles, but now are seriously considering canceling all our Citi accounts over poor service. I'd love to hear from anyone here about similar experiences and what can be done to get the attention deserved by customers. Read below for the details and, meanwhile, Happy New Year everyone!

I recently paid the entire balance on my card (over $24,000) before leaving for Europe and Citi received and accepted the payment. However, that didn't stop them from also submitting an automatic payment for the old balance, thus paying themselves twice what they were owed. I phoned them and asked them to reverse the payment. The agent told me that they do not reverse automatic payments and to contact

Citibank to refuse the charge to my checking account. To make a long story short, they closed the account even thought there was no outstanding balance and no missed payment. The stated reason in the message below was a returned payment. I'm tempted to write to their CEO and cancel all our accounts. I ask, is this any way to treat customers? Amex would never do this and probably no bank would. They refused to reopen the acount until next week and offered me a weak apology and 5,000 miles.

"Account Closure - ACTION REQUIRED
We have been forced to close your Citi® Platinum Select® /
AAdvantage® World Elite® account because of payments being
returned to us unpaid. Your most recent payment of $24,085.18
was not honored by your financial institution; therefore, we have
charged your account a returned payment fee according to the
terms of your Card Agreement. Please do not try to use your card
for purchases or cash advances, as any new transactions will be
denied approval.
Please understand that by not paying your Citi® Platinum Select®
/ AAdvantage® World Elite® MasterCard® bill, you are risking
damage to your credit rating. Therefore, we urge you to send us
a payment of $24,085.18 immediately. Please send this payment in
the form of a cashier's check or money order so we can credit
your payment right away."

biggestbopper

Outpaddling, you certainly have my sympathy.

This sort of thing is just one reason why I would NEVER allow Citi to auto pay itself.

With that said, IMHO, threaten to cancel is almost always a mistake.

Perhaps you should drop into your branch and see what they can do for you--probably not too much, although my local branch did correct a big time Thank You Point screw up by the computer center.

Then try writing to Citi CEO and nicely point out that you are a loyal Citi customer and that the events at issue were most inconvenient. What can they do to make this right.

Meanwhile, apply for a Starwood Amex.

mia

Some banks reduce the amount of the automatic debit to reflect manual payments, others do not. What does your direct debit agreement with Citi specify?

Here is language from the Citi agreement on one of our accounts which explains the requirements for altering a automatic payment. I do not see any indication that Citi automatically reduces the payment to reflect manual payments, but you could have stopped the auto payment with three days notice. Your agreement may not be identical.

AutoPay Terms & Conditions
A payment in the amount you requested will be automatically deducted from your designated Bank Account each month. Changes made to your payment preferences must be received by Citibank at least 3 days prior to the Due Date and changes to your bank information must be received at least 6 days prior to the Due Date, to be processed for that month. If you have notified us of a disputed charge, and would like to withhold payment for that transaction, be sure to change your payment preference at least 3 days prior to the Due Date shown on your statement. Please Note: Any payment made on a weekend or holiday will be applied as of the day you make it. However, it will not be posted until the next business day. Your available credit will be updated and your payment account will be debited once your payment has posted.

Same Day Crediting If we receive your request to make an online payment by 5 p.m. ET, we will credit your payment as of that day. If we receive your request to make an online payment after 5 p.m. ET, we will credit your payment as of the next day.

Please Note: Any payment made on a weekend or holiday will be applied as of the day you make it. However, it will not be posted until the next business day. Your available credit will be updated and your payment account will be debited once your payment has posted.

If any electronic payment is returned unpaid by your financial institution for any reason, we may charge, and you agree to pay, a returned payment fee. You may also be charged a late fee based on the terms and conditions of your Card Agreement. Subsequent scheduled payments may also be canceled.

outpaddling

Thanks for the replies from both mia and biggestbopper. It is great to get advice from such senior contibutors. Regarding mia's quote above, I am traveling and do not have my copy of the card agreement. It is not available online except by secure email request which is not working on my acount for some reason, possibly because they closed my account). My two other credit cards reduce the automatic debit to reflect payments, but Citi's agent now tells me that they do not. In any case, my issue is that it was "Citicard" insisting that I get "Citibank" to refuse the automatic payment as a solution which apparently caused the account closure.

biggestbopper says "Perhaps you should drop into your branch and see what they can do for you". As I said above, I am traveling in Europe and cannot drop into my branch. My past experience with the branch leads me to believe they will cover any fees or NSF charges, but have no control over the card division or mileage rewards.

If someone can advise me with contact information, then I'll write a strong letter to Citi Senior Management. As I said in my title, it is possibly illegal for Citi to close my acount, demand payment, and also threaten me with a negative credit report -- when my account was never, ever past due. I've now had two bounced charges for scheduled payments (my mobile phone and my Internet service) while traveling and my MasterCard account remains closed. This is terrible customer service!

mia

Understood. I do think you have legitimate issues to raise with Citi, but in my experience it's best to stay focused on deviations from their own policy rather than muddying the discussion by (for example) accusing them of trying to take a double payment.

If I recall correctly, Chase reduces automatic payments by the amount of manual payments, but Bank of America (like Citi) does not.

As you work through this, consider biggestbopper's advice to move most of your spending from the Citi card to the Starwood Preferred Guest card. You will actually earn more AAdvantage miles per dollar for your trouble.

Happy

From my recollection, Citi does NOT reduce autopay amount by manual payments. You have to inform Citi within a deadline before the Auto Pay kicks in in order to stop it or alter the amount. I dont remember the details though.

While auto pay is convenient, I never like it because when it goes wrong, it can go very wrong. The headache / time / efforts involved to clean up the mess is simply not worth the convenience to me. We travel aboard frequently and I have found that I can access Citicard Account Online virtually anywhere I can find internet access - I can view account unbilled activities, schedule payment and check if payment has correctly applied. There is no need for auto payment nor pay ahead. The only place I found it is somewhat difficult to access it is on cruise ship, mainly due to the satellite bandwidth limitation that Citi's site took forever to load and often time-out.

I like to schedule payment at my own preference as to when, instead of using the inflexible auto pay. It takes no more than 2 minutes to schedule a payment on Citi's site.

outpaddling

Thank you mia. It is funny you should mention Bank of America where I have one of my two other credit cards. It’s an Amex Accolades Card and they definitely reduce automatic payments by the amount of manual payments. My other card is a MasterCard managed by Barclays for Miles&More that I use for Star Alliance miles. They also reduce automatic payments to reflect manual payments. I agree it is best to focus on violations on their own policy, but I must express outrage that they closed our account without notice.

Regarding your recommendation and biggerbopper's, I had looked at the SPG Amex in the past but felt the Accolades card was better and more flexible. I suppose I could use SPG to replace Citi and will surely do that if Citi does not repair the damage done to our relationship. To all others reading this, I'd appreciate more advice on confronting Citi about their shocking action. Meanwhile, all Citi card holders should be aware that your loyalty and good payment history apparently mean nothing to this behemoth bank.

outpaddling

Hello Happy:

I have received similar advice about not using auto pay and it certainly would have prevented this incident of Citi getting paid twice. However, there is apparently no guarantee that Citi won't cancel your account over a manual payment issue if their system is so unforgiving. Also, I have used auto pay of utilities, insurance, and other cards for years so why should my Citi bill be any different? If I end up keeping the account, I'll consider your advice very carefully. Thanks.

Happy

I had a fiasco with Chase as well as BofA years ago, long before the auto-pay becomes so prevalent. Both foul-ups were caused by the banks IT system that went down and did not perform the payments on time. After the 2nd fiasco I said forget it, I would just manually do this myself, and always leave a few days room for safety guard.

A month or 2 ago, Chase Online went down almost 3 days after it did a system upgrade. During the first day there was not even an announcement on the home page about this. Later it put up a notice that phone banking still working and it promised customers that it would waive any late payment fees on their CCs and reimbursed any fee involved when people cannot schedule payments to other merchants because they did not have access to Chase Online.

A couple weeks ago BofA site did the same thing when I tried to access my account. It did not have any message posted on home page but the log in page simply kept loading and loading and loading and eventually timed out. A call to BofA confirmed its site was down and the rep offered to check account or other banking stuff over the phone. I wanted to see if Citi and AMEX had pulled their payments as scheduled. She could only see Citi's but not AMEX... Since AMEX has sent me email alerts on Payment Received, I wasn't too worried but still wondered if the payments had actually gone through... The next day when BofA site recovered, sure enough, the AMEX payments were listed on previous day's transactions.

We have grown to rely on the technology very much and are duped to believe the bank's marketing points of auto pay, bill pay, paperless statements... When they work, they are wonderful. When they dont, they are nightmarish... Just saying.

cutnana

Auto pay is the way for banks to make money! Unless you park a nice sum of money in your account, never ever do it. It will cost you dearly over time.

mia

Perhaps you could make some time to explain how you arrived at this conclusion?

cutnana

I believe a lot of people forget about the auto pay and the amount is different every month so you loose control. When pay day arrives, many times there are not enough funds in the account which will then result in nice fees for both the bank and the cc company.

outpaddling

In my recent case, Citibank charged me a $34 NSF fee on two separate attempts just a few days apart when trying to autopay my Citi card. Citi card will also assess a $39 returned check fee. I'd say that over $100 in fees is excessive to double pay themselves after they'd already accepted my manual payment in full. However, I wouldn't call it greed. Rather, they have become slaves to a computer system which has no judgement.

I just returned from Europe and want to write to a Citi Executive about their inexcusable cancelation of my account. Please anyone, who do I email? Thanks!

biggestbopper

Don't email.

Fax a letter to a big wheel at Citi HQ in NYC (be sure you get confirmation sheet) and send copy by mail. Pick out President or CEO by looking at Citi website which should also have fax #. If you have problems finding fax # call HQ and get big wheel's office and ask them. Or look on Yahoo profile or similar for Citi.

Be polite! (not that any FTer is ever anything else). Be specific as to what you want.

Email is, IMHO, much less effective than a letter.

cutnana

In your case I understand that there were no sufficient funds in your account which led to the closing of the CC account though you owed nothing....

If it were paid twice you should have asked for a check. I had a similar experience and because it was a large sum they held it for many weeks until I raised hell (then they overnight it)

I can't believe how stupid can Citi be to loose such a great customer. I am sure you can call and ask them to open the account and they will do it. Ask to speak to a supervisor who will see the whole issue. Citi s good with refunding fees so don't be afraid to ask to reverse them.

I find it funny that this morning I realized that I forgot to cancel my automatic ACH into a chase checking account which I closed a few days ago...

I wonder what will happen to the account (it might get reopened) and if fees will be involved.

Automatic payments are a big profit center for the banks.