I exacted revenge on my credit card company!

The BBQ Pit
1

A year or two ago CitiCards, which I’ve had an account with for over 15 years, cancelled my card in order to issue me a “better” one with a different number.

So I had to call around to every place I do business with regularly and change everything over. I explained to Citi that I did not regard this as an improvement in service. My balance is always paid off, so I don’t care about interest rates and whatever else was better about the new card.

Then last month they did it again! They changed my account to “improve my service” as the customer service lady told me. I told them this was a friggin’ nuisance, not a service to me.

So I figured that as long as I’m changing account numbers with everyone again, I might as well change accounts too. I applied for a card from a different company through my credit union, who assured me they don’t go in for similar shenanigans. It came today, and I called up Citi to inform them I would no longer require my account them. I explained why.

They did the usual panic of handing me over to someone who specializes in talking people out of this. He asked if there was anything they could do to keep me. I said, “Yes, there is. I’ve spent approximately 6 hours total changing everything over each time you changed my account, including waiting on hold to speak with your customer service reps. I generally charge $500 per hour as a consultant. So if you’ll issue me a certified check for $3000 I’ll keep my account.”

Silence.

“I didn’t think so. I’ve warned your company about this before, which you should know because hopefully you keep notes on these kinds of conversations. Close my account.”

Bam!!! That felt good!!!

WTF is with these companies? Don’t lie to me. If you need to change my account to satisfy some internal scheme of your own, fucking say so. Don’t tell me it’s to “help” me.

I don’t care if closing the account makes my credit rating take a slight dip. It’s worth it to punish a bad company.

2

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think your credit rating takes a dip when you close an account. In your report, it is noted as “CLOSED BY CUSTOMER.” The ones you have to worry about are the ones that are noted “CLOSED BY CREDIT GRANTOR.”

I had a card with MBNA for years. I usually carried a small balance, but nothing too outrageous, and I didn’t pay much attention to the fine print on the statements. (Yup, classic dumbass, right?) Then one day, I happened to notice the interest rate they were charging me. 29.97 APR. Holy shit!!! When the hell did it get that high?!?

I paid off the balance, waited until the next bill showed a zero balance and zero due, and called Customer Service and told them to cancel my account. They asked me why, and I told them I could get a better interest rate from Vinny on the corner up the street.

“Would you prefer to consult with one of our representatives to see if they could lower your interest rate?” she asked.

“Why should I? You never consulted ME when you were raising it.”

“All right, sir. Your account is closed.”

I’ll never do business with those fuckers again.

3

I had that happen once. It turned out they had pulled a credit report at noticed a ‘credit card’ with with a 20,000 dollar limit and a balance of about 19,000 dollars. So they figured there was a problem. After explaining to them that it was a secured line of credit agaisnt my house which I had just bought, they changed it back to whatever it was before and refunded any extra interest I had to pay becuase of it.

4

I called AT&T, where I keep my “spare” credit card, because I noticed they hadn’t sent me a new card when the old one expired.

I got an outsourced guy on the phone, by which I mean, he spoke English with a very very heavy Hindi accent. I asked for a new card to be sent to me. Simple request, I thought. Well, he had to give me some spiel about this new program, I frankly have no idea what it was because he was nearly unintelligible, but it included a $15 gift certificate just for signing up. And he was GOING to sign me up, and I could “simply contact them within 30 days to cancel”. I said I did not want this new service, because I don’t like having to call to cancel things which I hadn’t asked for in the first place.

Well, he wasn’t going to be dissuaded. He repeated his entire spiel. I told him again, “I do not want it. Thank you.”

Repeat…at least 10 times. He must have used the phrase “$15 gift certificate” twenty or thirty times. Every time I tried to interrupt him and say “No thank you. I do not want it,” it seemed to trigger him to repeat the spiel again, so finally I let him talk himself out. This took…10-15 minutes total, from the time I got on the phone with him. It reminded me of nothing so much as that recording that guy made of trying to close his AOL account.

Finally, he agreed to send me the new card, and did not start up the new thing (I hope! I don’t carry a balance, so I don’t get monthly zero-balance bills.)

I have half a mind to call up now that I have the new card, and just cancel the damn thing. I’m sure I can do as well or better almost anywhere.

5

That’s not true. Depending upon the thickness of your credit reort, closing an account can have a significant effect on your FICO score due to the overall age of your accounts. The OP hurt her credit score more by closing the account than she hurt CITI, but I understand the anger at wanting to close the account. For the record, unless the card has an annual fee, I personally wouldn’t close the account because of utilization and age for your FICO score.

6

HE doesn’t care. :slight_smile:

I own a home and don’t plan on buying another any time soon. My car is long paid off, and I won’t be buying another for at least four more years (barring accidents). So my credit rating is pretty much a non-issue.

By publicizing the incident on this board, I hope to cause others to punish bad companies by taking their business elsewhere.

If enough of us stop putting up with shoddy and thoughtless service by companies like CitiCards, we may just hurt them enough to change their behavior.

7

Don’t most credit card companies hate it when people pay off their balance every month? I wonder if CITI was changing your accounts as a way to punish you for depriving them of interest and finance charges?

8

I had one of mine canceled because of inactivity.

I used to keep them open with an 87¢ overpayment and this caused them to have to send monthly statements at the bulk rate so they were losing $ over the year.

Then they fixed my by paying all overage back once a year, so I just over paid again. he he he

Now I just charge about $10 to each card once a year and then over pay by 87¢ and I’m good.

9

They don’t seem to notice too well. When I lived in the US, I’d pay off my CC account on the same day I ran the purchase (I only use it as a way to avoid carrying large amounts). Every time I used it, I got a letter saying “your credit limit has been increased!” within two weeks.

10

Don’t forget, they also make money every time you charge something. Businesses pay something like 2-3% of their transactions to the credit card companies.

11

I have Chase Bank and they randomly send me new credit cards all the time but the main number is always the same (they do change the three digit code on the back of the card.) Changing the number is crazy. You were right to cancel.

12

Which is why FICO is FUCKO. Closing your own damn account should not have any effect on your scores. FICO keeps why it does what it does a deep dark secret but I suspect strongly the “hit” on your score is to keep you with your Card companies depsite poor service. I say “fuck 'em and cancel”. Besides the hit is a short time hit, and unless you are getting a new Mortagage in the next year, it’s no big deal. In the case of such poor service, I do suggest closing the account. Also note that having too much open credit can also hurt your score. As well as having too many Garden gnomes and flamingos as far as anyone really knows.

However- Mach Tuck- it might be a good idea to get another card or even two, so that any changes are lessened by the depth of your credit history.

kaylasdad99- it depends on the Card co. Many are fine with you paying off the card balance every month. After all, the standard AMEX card is worked just that way. If the company is legit, they don’t mind at all, they get plenty of fees from the Merchant. It’s bottom feeding card cos (like Captial One, which is the best known of the bottom feeders) that make huge profits off usurious interest, late and “overlimit” fees that don’t want you to pay off every month. Don’t get me wrong, even a completely legit CC company would *like * you to carry a balance (as long as you make every payment on time) but they are still content to get your business without interest charges.

13

The beauty of it is if you go on vacation and are late with a payment to anybody ,all your cards can jack your rates sky high in unison.Even if you never missed a payment or were late with them.

14

I make a point of closing any account that has outsourced itself to an agency that does not employ people who can communicate with me.

I’m not interested in being politically correct, if I want to speak Indian, Indonesian, Eastern European, then I shall seek out the best tutors to teach me.

I think it is very rude to farm out your customers and expect them to accept the inconvenience of dealing with crappy customer service.

To this end, British Telecom have lost my mobile phone account - I don’t mind outsourcing to India, I do mind not being able to get my instructions across, and the poor sods over there seem to be under immense pressure to go through their scripts and make new business without any regard to the conversation with the current calling customer.

My internet account was pretty good, fast servers, but got took over by Tisicali, who promptly moved their servers to Germany, or at least bought network time over there, trying to go through the labyrinthine phone keypad system and eventually getting through to a poor English speaking European of some sort, convinced me that account was no good any more.

I’ve had several ISPs I’ve had to shut down because of this, it seems to me that when someone starts up, they buy network time in the UK, which probably costs more than can be purchased elsewhere, then one of the big boys takes a look, realises that they can cut costs by buying cheaper network time in Timbuktu and buys them out, they must think that it will make them more profit, it just loses them customers.

Tiscali have taken over two ISPs I used and they royally screwed them up, and their acounts system has been examined closely by our Office of Fair Trading, which has come to the conclusion that Tiscali are not malicious, just fucking incompetant.

15

Yes. Ironically, they refer to such accounts as “deadbeats” because they make no profit on them.

16

Read post #10 and #12. :rolleyes:

17

Out of curiosity, do you actually know anything about the credit card industry and card economics?

18

Better as in not compromised by a hacker.

Cite, scroll down.

19

I had a card a while back in mine & my wife’s name. As part of the divorce agreement, I was to assume the credit card debt, while she would assume the debt for a loan of about equal amount.

When I called the credit card company to ask them to remove her name, they said she would have to fill out a form for their review. Understandably, they would have to be confident that I would be able to pay before letting her officially walk away from the debt (which was about $2500.) Despite two attempts, the lazy ex never got around to filling out the form.

Meanwhile, I had been making large payments in an effort to be rid of the debt. I had mistakenly overpaid the balance by a couple of hundred dollars. Once I realized I had overpaid, I contacted the CC company to have them remove my ex’s name.

I was again given the lecture that they would have to review the situation & be confident that I could pay. I pointed out that I didn’t owe anything. They actually owed me. Any future charges would be for my own purchases. I was told it was illegal for them to remove my ex’s name. I asked whether it was actually illegal or just against company policy & if against the law to please cite the appicable statute. After getting the runaround I told them to close my account & send me a check.

A couple of days later, I received a call from the CC company asking if there was anything they could do to get me back as a customer. I figured when I explained the situation, the person would agree that it would have been simple to remove my ex’s name & carry on (which I was no longer interested in.) But, no, he gave me the spiel that they can’t just remove her name without being confident that I would be able to pay any balance.

20

We’ve had some similar problems with Citibank lately. After 17 years as customers they started cancelling our credit cards last spring. They would send new ones but they were only good for a month or two. We’ve had to make lots of phone calls to keep our accounts current. I think we have it straightened out now.