Citibank savings acct - absolute SHAMBLES

MiserlyMartin

They have been crap. Its taken 2 weeks to get full online access and the indian call centre is terrible to deal with - thats if you even get through the stupid menu system and can wait a long time in their queueing system.

I see the rate has dropped now for issue 7 accounts but nowhere on my online account does it confirm the rate I have, so I have no way of knowing if which issue I managed to get.

The_Sven

Saving wrote: »

I think the success of setting up this account is directly linked to IQ.

I don't want my savings account to be a challenge to my 'intellect' - I just want it to be hassle-free.

richardginger

If you want a hassle free savings account then don't use Citibank. The call centre in Mumbai is enough to put anyone off. I have experienced nothing but problems especialy trying to access the account online.

The_Sven

fabforty wrote: »

originally posted by the_sven

so now we've got about eighteen shared secrets: The three secrets i signed up with, three pins, login and password, and five questions and their answers. Makes sense, after all, the more shared secrets, the more secure the account, right?? Not !

What do you mean 'not' ?

These are pretty fundamental security principles which have been widely known since the 1960s at least. If you allow customers to formulate the shared secrets, you will either get:

1. People re-use easy-to-remember secrets, such as mother's maiden name, first school, date when married, etc. The problem with this is two-fold:
a) Most people will have used the exact same secrets to register for other accounts/websites, not all of them well-protected. Hence, someone with access to one of your accounts/websites has a reasonable chance to 'guess' the secrets of the others.
b) The secrets most people will choose are laughably easy to retrieve over the internet. The Guardian ran an article in 2006 called "What could a boarding pass tell an identity fraudster about you?". The results were not pretty.

2. People savvy to all of this will make up random secrets, but if the number of secrets become too large, they will need to write them down somewhere. BIG no-no! If someone uses these secrets to raid your savings account, there will be no recourse to the bank. According to the T&Cs, it'll be a case of gross negligence. No skin off their nose.

For those reasons (and many more), banks with a little bit of a clue will keep the shared secrets few and non-trivial. Any risks associated with the customer forgetting the secrets can easily be offset by using a 'something you have' fall-back. For example a home postal address, passport, etc.

arothwell

Now that citibank have opened another savings account does that mean that the one I opened last week will no longer give me the high interest rate on money deposited today?

lulu999

I emailed the CEO Vikram Pandit to let him know my displeasure at the particularily poor performance of his organisation's customer service.
He obviously takes it more seriously than his call centres, since I then had 3 calls within the space of half an hour from people who's native tongue was English, actually listening to me and, in a position to resolve matters. (Pity the 3 callers didn't communicate with each other, since the first call cleared everything up. Slightly ironic to have them tripping over themselves to resolve matters).

Don't get me wrong, I won't be going back to them, I haven't got the patience to go to these lengths every time.