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I have the card here that citibank sent and all I have to do is activate it...as I've said on another thread all these adverse comments are putting me off.....I never had to do the passport thing though

WaxiesDargle wrote: »

I have the card here that citibank sent and all I have to do is activate it...as I've said on another thread all these adverse comments are putting me off.....I never had to do the passport thing though

You're right . .. and you're wrong.

"All I have to do is activate it" isn't easy. (or hasn't been for many folks here). It took me 3 phone calls of between an hour and an hour and a half to get through (all the terrible hold music / messages tell me I can apply for a savings account online, even though I've selected the 'activate' option which seems counter intuitive to me?!) . . . once I did get through, the bloke in the foreign call centre was clearly reading from a script, asked me a bunch of stupid security questions where the answer to one negated the next, then put me on hold for 10 minute to get it 'activated' . . . What the hell does that mean? Surely the bloke has a button on a screen to click that says 'activate' on it . . . how does that take 10 minutes?

Anywho, after you do get through this, you then face the challenge of using the appauling website. After clicking about 5 different 'Register' options, filling out pin numbers with a really rubbish on screen keyboard, then answering 5 more security challenges (the questions to which are the most bizzarre I've seen) you then find yourself with an active account. From here, the experience doesn't get any better.

On the "Payments / Transfers" option, I encounter 3 steps. 1 = Destination account. Simple enough. 2 = Amount. Again easy. 3 = Payee and my linked current account details are listed. Now this confuses me. If my 'Destination account' is my new savings account, how can my current account be the 'Payee'?

Payee definition :
A person receiving payment through any form of money transfer method.

At this point, I've given up.

Within 6 minutes online, I've opened an ING savings account at 3.2% where the interest is paid monthly like the Citi account. All's I've got to do is send a cheque (freepost) to initially activate the account. I had a question about the account, so I phoned them, at peak times, and got straight through to an English call centre where the girl I spoke to was very nice and very knowledgable.

Screw Citi.

I would Phone them to tell them to close my account but that'd be another 90 minutes of my life I'd never get back.

spantik wrote: »

how did any of you that provided your identity details by post as photocopies (my online information got me nowhere) get them countersigned as authentic? I asked my bank (HSBC) to help as 'bankers' were on the (very short) list of people who are now trusted to do this (ha!ha!) and they refused citing the Data Protection Act as a reason!! Hmmmm

Any experience of this?

I went to my bank (natwest) and said that I had applied for an online account and needed proof of ID. I forgot to mention that it wasn't a natwest account that I was applying for ...

EDIT: I had applied for a natwest account online not that long previously, so I knew that do sometimes require ID and that the staff might be used to this sort of request.

spantik wrote: »

Have had all the same problems with Citi as the rest of you all on the forum so am giving up but, one thing before I do....

how did any of you that provided your identity details by post as photocopies (my online information got me nowhere) get them countersigned as authentic? I asked my bank (HSBC) to help as 'bankers' were on the (very short) list of people who are now trusted to do this (ha!ha!) and they refused citing the Data Protection Act as a reason!! Hmmmm

Any experience of this?

I sent my parents to Barclays as they know the manager there and he stamped and signed the copy in minutes without my presence haha. Data protection my !!!!!, more like 'I can't be bothered to help you!'

On a happier note, I closed my ING just now. Got connected within 10 mins as no doubt they are overwhelmed with new applications, but the best bit is talking to a clearly well spoken advisor and not the foreign script talking robots over at Citi which probably would have taken me the best part of half a day lol. He even said 'I'm not gonna lie to you, I can't beat 3.3%' :T Honesty, you gotta love it!

Are ING Direct reliable and trustworthy?