Sorry to hear you're going through it now, too! Unfortunately, I got hit with the verification process again—it's a bit puzzling how aggressive it is, especially since I was making plenty of smaller "everyday" purchases in my town (I was going with dining and typically cheaper places—it was going to become my grocery card once the quarter was over for CFF). While I understand most issuers want to learn about your usage and are cautious on new accounts, the amount of time I've wasted just to use the card for simple stuff has been frustrating. Like you, I also got some surly-from-the-start customer service people in the fraud department. Despite the Custom Cash having a great return, I was fed up with the nonsense and closed it, even at the expense of a wasted inquiry and new account penalty. The retentions rep was pleasant enough, but even he didn't seem surprised when I was even willing to leave the welcome bonus on the table.

In hindsight, I could've left it open, tried to get the welcome bonus, and closed it after a year (to avoid any potential clawback), but I was really over being on the phone with awful audio quality and a guilty-until-proven-innocent tone more often than not (since opening, my card has been disabled more than it has been usable). There are other lenders that have given me much larger limits, don't seem to scrutinize routine purchases, and seem to have verification processes that make sense.

While many folks on here and other places have had decent enough experiences with Citi and I don't want to take away from that, it seems that this constant-verification has been a thing for some accounts for awhile: https://milestomemories.com/citibank...tely-no-sense/