Citibank ranks below ComCast for my corporate hate, but only a little. They rank above Circuit City, but only because CC went out of business.
Am I the only one who was a little disappointed that the thread title didn’t mean that they had fallen over that edge? I know, I know, it’s probably shameful and evil of me to wish for a major U.S. financial institution to go belly-up, given the chaos that would cause in people’s lives, but I can’t deny that I would feel a bit of schadenfreude at least. Why is that?
Oh, yeah, maybe that’s it.
Khadaji, do you have some kind of ‘letter C’ jinx on you?
@ TWDuke: Here’s an ignorant question for you. If Citi does go belly-up, what happens to all the credit card/line of credit accounts? Do they sell them to other financial institutions?
I hadn’t noticed the pattern.
Get thee to a local credit union or locally owned bank. Both still exists everywhere. To find a credit union you can join, check http://ibelong.org/
The big banks are hiking people’s rates and fees across the board now in advance of their deadline to do so, next June. This move raised the ire of the legislators who put forth the initial bill, BTW, and so they attempted to put through a new provision to stop this “proactive” rate increase frenzy and you can thank your local Party of No members for putting the interests of their corporate cronies over regular consumers and blocking that legislation from going through.
I would imagine so. If you have a Citibank card, you’d probably keep using it but your payments would now be going to Chase (or whomever). Eventually your new Chase (or whatever) card would arrive in the mail with instructions to destroy the old card. At least that’s been my experience in the past.
They’ll cut their nose off to spite their face, people will leave in droves, they’ll teeter on financial ruin, beg the goverment that they’re too big to fail, get a HUGE cash infusion (8 times more than they’d get with the rate increases), give themselves huge bonuses, and…
I’m using the auto industry as a map, I dunno what happens next.
A few years back when identity theft was a VERY lucrative business, I heard a factoid: Credit Card comapines wrote off 12 billion in losses…expected normal operating expenses categorized as ‘theft’, and it didn’t bug them much. Makes you wonder how much money they were REALLY making. Kinda like that ‘big’ payoff from the tobacco industry. If they’re that easy going about writing a Billion dollar check, what are they REALLY earning?
I got the same notice. Something like Citibank raising my rates to…you know what? I don’t even know. I haven’t paid credit card interest or taken a cash advance since Ronald Reagan was in office. They can raise rates to 100% for all I care.
I’m all for banks tightening credit. I think it’s about time consumers started living within their means and making credit harder to get is a good way to do it.
HOWEVER, I really object to the shenanigans that credit card companies are pulling right now. They should be reducing people’s limits and increasing the required minimum payments. Increasing rates and instituting new fees, especially retroactively, is just a slimebag cash grab that does nothing to stem irresponsible behaviour. In my case, I just got dinged by a retroactive service charge of $45 on an outstanding balance on my Citibank credit card and I’m pretty pissed-off about it.
Back in April, when we were still teetering on the brink of a greater depression, I bought a new king-sized bed for $2000 and took advantage of the store’s great financing deal through Citi. No payments, no interest, no service charges and no fees for 12 months. Awesome, says I, free money for a whole year and I only have to pay $166 a month to have it paid off!! Yeah, right. After 6 months of regular $200 payments (I like round numbers), I get a notice that they’re instituting a service charge of $45 on all accounts over $800. FUCKERS!!!
That wasn’t part of the deal I signed back when I bought the bed. This retroactive bullshit is outright theft as far as I’m concerned. And it was awfully fucking convenient that I got this notice just a month before I hit that $800 limit. And to add insult to injury, I’m now getting bombarded with junk mailings trying to sell me on lines of credit and as well as regular telemarketing calls pushing the same. UN-BE-FUCKING-LIEVABLE! I’ll never deal with those douchebags again.
Hodge, is there anything you can do to make them honor the original contract? It seems to me that the mattress deal is a separate contract from your credit card with Citibank and the original terms should be honored. Maybe if you contacted the executives at Citibank and contacted your representative in Congress, the new charges might go away? Worth a try.
First of all, I just noticed that this isn’t the pit (although it should be) so I apologize for the profanity.
To clarify, I didn’t use an existing Citibank card but rather got the loan from Citibank who was providing financing through the store. I have spoken to the store manager who says his hands are tied and I believe him. You should have heard him bitch and complain about how this little stunt has unleashed a flood of irate callers. I haven’t contacted Citibank yet, but I’m tempted to walk into their local office with one of their line of credit offers and then pull a little bait and switch of my own to complain about the extra fee. It might not accomplish anything but every minute I waste their time is a minute they can’t spend suckering somebody else.
I did read the loan agreement at the time of purchase and, unfortunately, I think there may be a clause there that might cover them for this but I’m going to take a closer look this weekend. It’s not like I can’t afford the extra charge but I hate them taking advantage of their customers this way.
BTW, I’m Canadian so we don’t have any Congressmen here (thankfully). On the other hand, my member of parliament is a twit so it all evens out.
It is hearing stories like this that really confuse me as to any trend being set forth.
I have a Citibank credit card, and at this point I only use it if I’m having an issue with my primary (where I at least earn airline miles). The Citibank card I have is my longest held card, so thats the 2nd reason I like to keep it - to keep my credit score from tanking.
Anyway, my citibank card has only a $5000 limit, and I use it maybe once per year. The charges never get rolled over to the next month. So the only money they make on my holding the card is the transaction fee.
Yet, I just checked my rate, and its 14.99%. Not too shabby.
My primary card is through another bank, and I occasionally roll over a balance - it all just depends on how the work pay schedule falls that month and when the charges were put on, and so on and so forth. The rate on that card is 13.24%.
It just makes no sense - if they (banks) are cutting people who they don’t make money on via, citibank should be dropping me like a hot potato. And if a bank is raising rates on people who carry a balance, I’d expect a worse rate than 13.24% on my primary card - even if it is only 2-3 times a year that a potential portion of a balance is carried over. Last I looked (3 yrs ago), my credit score was just below 800. Only difference between then and now is the purchase of a house - so I dont see how my score would have dropped significantly. But it still makes no sense to me why others, who are in a similar boat with balances and credit scores, are being told it is an across-the-board increase when it obviously isn’t.
Should I not check my mail tomorrow?
Is it possible that you received the notice but overlooked it? On my Citi line of credit, they say they sent a notice last spring but I must have missed it. The new rate had already gone through before I noticed it. Had I been alert I would have ‘opted out’, closed the account and kept the 10% rate while I paid it off. As it is, I’m stuck with almost 20% on that balance.
I would think that, except for the fact that I had checked my rates online. I suppose the online rate displayed might lag a bit, but I kinda doubt it - since the balance info is updated daily.
Hopefully they’re not going to mess with your rate, then.
If I recall correctly, this rate increase on my credit card is not supposed to happen until January 1. So checking my online rate right now wouldn’t prove anything.
(In case that’s confusing, I have both a line-of-credit account and a credit card account at Citi).
Unless, you know, they’re being disingenuous. Not like they have a record of that, or anything. :dubious:
It occurs to me that I’ve never used a cash advance…the rates were too stupidly high and i’m pretty sure about keeping enough money with me. But to raise my cash advance rate to 25% (That’s like grade-school bully math) really adds insult to injury.
You’re screwed.
You need cash.
“Well, I’ll give you the money. But at any time I might call in a favor. <cue Godfather music>”
I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop – the annual fee. That’s when we’re telling them to stuff it.
Bastards - can you “opt out” of the 45 fee? This has GOT to be illegal.
Re the credit limit decrease, minimum payment increase: I don’t have ANY problems with them increasing the minimum payment on new purchases. However, we hear stories of people who were paying their 1 or 2 percent a month, and then got their minimums more than doubled to 5% on their existing balances… and they were going to have a LOT of trouble making the increased minimum.
Yeah, they shouldn’t have been so over-leveraged that they could barely pay that small amount. But the reality is, they were in that position, and the rules got changed retroactively. I wonder how many people got pushed into default for just that reason.
The credit limit decrease is another sneaky one. Immediate drop in credit score (because now your utilization rate is MUCH higher), possible over-the-limit fees if they dropped it enough (dunno if they ever assessed such fees on existing balances but if you don’t notice the decrease, and continue using the card… whoops!).
Bank of America is another sleazeball in this game, but I agree Shitibank has a lousy reputation. We’re letting our BofA accounts go inactive as a result.
Funny thing is, We’ve got close to 80,000 in available credit card, use less than a tenth that. They’re MORE than willing to let people make the wrong decisions and give them enough rope to hang themselves. Further, there’s a whole lotta wiggle-room in there for a BadGuy™ to pull a chunk of money out before detection. (yes, I understand that there are stop-gaps and measures and hueristics, etc.)