mia

Barclays USA issued cards are not true Chip & PIN, they merely have the ability to use a PIN if the merchant's POS system requires it, and this typically happens only at unattended locations, and certainly not on Internet transactions. I don't see any merchant on nikleb's list where a PIN would have been required.

Tyler2017

That's strange, every time I use my Barclays Visa at a restaurant within the SF Bay Area, the server always comes and tells me that it is prompting for a PIN. The only exception that it does not seem to prompt for one is at the supermarket, in which I assume either they disabled PIN support or only require it when the amount is above a certain threshold.

PArquette

So, I just got the AAdvantage Platinum Select, my first Citi card.

I got it in the mail on Friday, went online to create my Citi account and activate the card. Immediately get a big red fraud alert and a number to call customer service.

I call customer service, get an overseas fraud department rep, who refuses to say anything to me except I have to verify myself. So we try to go through that. She can't use my cell phone that I'm calling from (which is the number I used when I applied) and she can't use my office phone (which I also listed on my application). She won't tell me why she can't use those numbers, and every time it involves a lengthy hold.

So then she asks me for cards from other banks. I give her my Delta Amex. Hold for like 5 minutes, she comes back and says they're unable to verify my identity. I ask her why not, again I get the standard "Sir, we're unable to discuss any issues with the account or the verification process with you until you are verified as the owner of the account." After I get a little more frustrated, she agrees to read back to me the Delta number I gave her. It's wrong. I correct her, she reads it back to me correctly, again I'm placed on like a 5 minute hold.

She comes back, once again, no dice. I give her my US Bank REI card. That doesn't work either, though she was wrong with the number again. At this point she basically says the only choice the fraud department has now is for me to fax a bunch of identification documents to them. And they'll get back to me in 5-10 business days. I'm not a happy camper, but I copy down the number and the list of documents.

After the call ends, I call back. This time to customer service, rather than fraud directly. The system appears to recognize my number, only requiring the last 4 digits of the card number to pull up my account, and immediately I'm redirected to an overseas fraud department operator. This time, she's not as pleasant, and tells me that she sees on my account that I have already been instructed to verify myself by faxing certain documents, and she refuses to discuss or say anything to me at all except the documents and fax number.

So I did what any good and upset customer would do: I complained on Twitter. I was almost immediately DM'd by Citi, who promised to have a social media team member call me on Saturday morning. I received my call, right on time, from a friendly American dude. Guy listened to my story, responded sympathetically, and then said he'd try and pull up my account and get me some answers.

I go through the usual card number, name, last 4 of SSN verification that I would expect from a bank. Then I get a weird reply from the guy: He can't access literally anything on my account. It just gives him a message telling him to forward me to the fraud department. According to this rep, that's not the standard fraud alert situation. Normally he would be able to access my account details so he could at least read the file. He told me he can't edit anything, but he can normally read stuff. Here, he can't even open my account. He told me "that's like, super fraud alert. Actually the wording is 'probable fraud case.'"

So, Citi basically thinks I stole my own identity, despite the fact that I don't live at a new address (been here for 2 years), have multiple accounts reported at this address (and no active accounts anywhere else), and they sent me the card!

The guy recommends that I just fax in the docs, and that I tweet back when they get me verified and maybe he can get me some answers as to what's going on.

Anyway, fast forward to Monday (yesterday) and I get a letter in the mail from Citi. Open it up, header is dated April 20 (the day before I received the card in the mail). Apparently Citi was "concerned that some recent transactions on my account might not have been authorized by [me]." Allegedly they tried to call me and I didn't pick up (I never pick up random 800 numbers, I get multiple a day on my cell), so they put an alert on my account.

So, I guess, explain that? My card was charged before I even got it in the mail?

Also, to add insult to injury, the account (and the spending deal) are of course ticking away from the moment the card was approved (I got a letter telling me it was approved, saying the date of "account opening" was April 11, so I'm 2 weeks into my 3 month spend and I can't even spend on the account).

Honestly, this experience has been so incredibly annoying, I don't even want the card anymore, and I don't want anything to do Citi. Except of course, I can't close the card because I'm apparently not me.

mikesyr18

I thought Barclays had PIN preferring cards with signature as a backup?

Example - Someone at a coffee shop uses your card on a terminal with a PIN pad would require a PIN, even if it's for a "credit" transaction, while a merchant with a processor like Square would require a signature only.

ellinj

No, Pin is secondary, You are prompted for a pin only if the terminal does not support signature.

sdsearch

No, my Barclay Aviator MC did only one PIN transaction in all the time I've used it over two years. That was at an unmanned gas station in rural Norway at night, where the gas station kiosk insisted on a PIN card.

Everywhere else overseas it defaulted to signature, even when clerks were not used to seeing signature-priority chip cards (because they're rare outside the USA).

The only PIN-priority cards I know of issued by "banks" in the USA are Diners Club (from BMO/Harris), but they're not accepting new applications and haven't done so in a couple years. With my Diners Club card, I've done PIN transactions at Walmart! (I don't keep up with cards issued by credit unions, only cards that earn real miles, real hotel points, or points that are transferable to one or both of those.)

You can learn more about which cards do what priority in this thread (start with its Wikipost):

nikleb

Just wanted to give an update and share my continued bad experience With Citibank.

Certain vendors are fighting the process and Citi takes the vendors site. For example: A temporary credit for Hotwire got reversed by City based ont he response of Hotwire. Citi actually sent me a letter with a copy of the hotwire paperwork. The paperwork uses some technical credit card lingo and a copy of the transaction. The transaction indicates that a reservation was made under a different name, email,... There was a letter to return to Citi to appeal which I did. So I have a temporary credit.

Lesson learned:
- Citi's claim of 100% fraud protection is really only partially true
- Takes a lot of effort and time to get rid of the charges
- One is in fact liable for fraud charges and it can affect your credit history (with large fraud charges). As Citi takes its time to give temporary credit (actually longer than stated in their policy) and reverses temporary credits for a while and you receive a statement during that time you are actually liable. In my case I am only dealing with 8 ~$250$ amounts. Can't imagine how this can affect a customer if larger fraud charges are made....

I am not going to say Citi is the worst and so on. However, I certainly do not recommend them. BTW. Doesn't matter that I am CitiGold and son on. The only benefit I get is some empty greeting "we value ...."

AceM

So i have had this card for quite a while and had not really used it in the past few yrs, but thanks to this and other forums i decided to call and ask about offers. Was given double TY points for 6 mth and 5% cash back from grocery stores until next mth.

So went to buy 3 $500 gift cards at Safeway which was denied, called fraud got it taken care of and made the purchase again. Came home bought a TV on ebay for $1300 denied, called got it fixed and said i wanted TY points as i was extremely frustrated. They gave me 500.

Well yet again i tried making a purchase for 3 $500 gift cards at Fred Myers which was denied, rep stayed on hold while i tried again and it went through. He said a manager would call me back at which point i will demand 5000 TY points as i cant even use the card without calling them.

nwflyboy

And does any of this surprise you?

eyeballer

Hardly used the card for years.. then go to spend $1500 at a supermarket (x2) and a TV on ebay (all on the same day?). Can hardly blame Citi for picking up unusual activity.

nikleb

Some time passed and I got credits for fraudulent charges.
However, it was not without pain. Citi took the side of the fraudulent charges vendors and reversed credits initially. So, I had to sign paperwork and eventually got the credit.

Really not what I expected as a long standing Citigold customer with a zero fraud liability policy.

However, the icing on the cake is that it actually affected my credit rating (score went down)!!! How, because of incomplete reporting from Citi makes my account look bad; e.g. length of credit, payment history. I filed a case with Equifax who acknowledged the issue. They sent a letter to Citi. Will see if this fixes it.

GadgetFreak

Im getting constant fraud holds from CitiBank. Today they put a hold on it when I tried to use it for gas because I reloaded my Starbucks card on my phone with the card. Something I have done for years about every three weeks or so (yeah I'm an addict to coffee but that's none of Citi's business). A couple weeks ago it was a pizza place I've probably used it at that place 1000 times over the years. A few months ago it was a taxi and limo service I've been using for decades. In both the latter cases it was places within a mile of my house. With the limo service it was every time I tried to use the card there for like 3 months.

One thing I noticed was that for some reason my cell phone dropped short message service at about the time this started happening. I didn't realize it until today. That's fixed now. Do I have to ask Citi to send the fraud alert messages to me or is it automatic? Maybe it's blocking the card because I wasn't answering the messages (since I wasn't getting the texts)? I didn't notice because I was getting iMessages and my wife and most of my friends have iphones.

IntFF

Their fraud detection software drives me nuts AND they can do better. I just can NOT trust their card that it will work whenever I need (onlone).

The software does Not know to look back if an online charge to a specific merchant was done recently and I paid the monthly stmt with No complaints.

Citi fraud system just declined a big charge of about $4K, but to a merchant that I did a similar charge (about $4K) 3 months ago. And the card was not idle. It is used (mostly online) about 10 times per month.

brody24

Awful experience with them today. Got my AA personal card delivered to me yesterday. Today, I made a few small purchases and then bought a VGC at a drug store. Understandably, it was not authorized, so I called in to validate the transaction and remove the block. Fraud prevention says they will remove the block and I'd be all set. I go back a second time and it was block again. I call Citi again, and this time, they put me through to a second department which apparently had its own separate block. I validate the info again, and they say they will remove the block and I'll be all set.

I try the transaction again, and its blocked. I call Citi a THIRD time, and have to validate AGAIN with fraud prevention, and then have to be bumped to a supervisor, who is finally able to get the block removed so that the transaction goes through. Was on the phone for 45 min with 4 separate reps to remove one simple block. Should have taken 5 min at most.

MaxVO

The sequence of small followed by a large purchase within 1-2 days virtually guarantees a tripped alarm on a new Citi card, and highly risky even on a well conditioned Citi card. If a large purchase is placed first, it's often clear sailing. Other times they might send you a text to verify on the spot. But if the fraud alert is tripped, ime it doesn't usually reset the same day.