Citicard refusing to honour cashback agreement

Oakwood · 12 May 2006 at 4:58PM

My wife and I have Citicard Platinum Visa cards on a joint account with a cashback of 1%. We acquired the account via a link on Moneysavingexpert a year ago and have since put all our purchases on the card. It's been an expensive year with buying a new flat, and our April statement showed that we had accumulated a cashback of over £300.

However, the May statement now says the cashback will be only £200! I have now spoken to 5 different people in their call centre who simply tell me that new terms and conditions were sent with the March statement stating that the cashback is now limited to the first £20,000 of purchases. I have 3 issues with this:

1) Throughout the year we used our cards in the expectation that we were earning cashback on all our purchases. To change the terms and conditions to reduce the cashback AFTER we have earned it strikes me as some sort of fraud. Had we known, we could have used our Morgan Stanley card instead and continued to earn 0.5%.

2) I subsequently checked every word of the revised terms and conditions, effective from 1 May 2006, and found a new line stating the cashback is limited to £30,000 of purchases (£300 of cashback) not the £20,000 stated on the phone.

3) I think to hide such a major change in 7000 words of microscopic small print is sneaky verging on the dishonest. I thought banks had moved beyond such behaviour. Having said that, our statements showed our cashback increasing month by month to over £300, so are Citicard defrauding us by attempting to pay only £200?

Some guidance on this would be appreciated while I await a response from the call centre. In the meantime I urge people to steer clear on Citicard for the above reason as well as the apparently inability of the overseas call centre to return calls or resolve the issue.

jonesMUFCforever · 12 May 2006 at 5:00PM

Forget the call centre.Write to complaints dept.

Oakwood · 14 May 2006 at 10:30PM

Yes, I'm aware of the procedure for escalating a complaint (including using the financial services ombudsman). In the meantime, however, I would be interested for advice on the legitimacy of Citicard's position. What does it mean for the cashback bonus if credit card companies can just wish away the amount their customers have built up?

Oakwood · 15 May 2006 at 10:00AM

This seems to be a Citicard speciality, as I found reference to a similar complaint in 2003 from a customer of the US Citicard Visa cashback scheme.

Fortunately, I have managed to obtain a resolution. Having finally tracked down a UK number (0800 146188), a representative of Citicard agreed to pay the additional cashback I was expecting. She also told me that they had a big meeting about this issue last week, and that in future the maximumum cashback will be limited to £200.

My wife and I are planning to resume using our Citicards for the time being, but to keep an eye on the small print and to get an MBNA Conran card as a back up. I suggest anyone else with this problem calls the UK freephone number listed above.