Financial ombudsman: This is the worse customer service I've ever heard of

albo2002

I made a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman about Citibank today, and was staggered to hear the woman say: "this is the worst example of customer service I've ever heard".

Has anyone else got a worse example?

For me, my debit card expired in December and Citibank didn't send me a new one. I notified them at the start of January, particularly as I was effectively frozen out of the account by not having one, and was told I'd receive a new card by the middle of the following week.

The middle of the following week came and went and over the course of the following two weeks from then, I called Citibank 5 times to ask what was going on. Each time I was told the card had been sent and I would receive it tomorrow, but never did.

So I used the opportunity of going to London (Citibank has very few branches in the UK) yesterday to get someone not from a call centre to manage the situation, and popped into one of their branches. There the lady said to me: 'I can see you requested a card on January the 3rd, but I cant see that we ever actually sent it to you, sorry'.

And yet that's only a fraction of the problem I've had. I was told that in order to transfer money, because I don't have a card, the only thing I can do is send a fax. So I sent a fax and didn't hear anything back, and called up Citibank to be told: 'our fax machine is broken'. I was given a new number to fax and sent the transfer to that, but again heard nothing back. So I called back, and was told: 'you should not have been given that fax number, it can not be used for transfers'.

So I sent another fax to the original number (I was told the machine was now fixed) and this time did get a call back, and said I needed a same-day transfer due to all the delays. I was then guaranteed that the money would be in the recipient's bank by the close of play that day.

Alas, I found out from the recipient that the money had not gone through. When I called Citibank the next day, I was told it had been transferred. And then when I found out from the recipient's bank that it had definitely not received anything, I found out from Citibank that they hadn't sent the money all along. I then twice tried to find out why, and was given two completely different reasons why, and no explanation as to why I wasn't informed the money had not been sent.

I then tried sending another fax to transfer money and again received no call back, and when I rang Citibank I was told: 'the fax we received wasn't a good enough quality, so we did not issue the transfer'. Again I was given no explanation why I was not told about this.

And not only that, but I've been told 4 times by their staff that I would receive a call back from a manager to help me with these issues on that day, and never received a call back on any of those occasions, and I was told that I could not receive written confirmation of a transfer going through, which I later found out was not true. (I was then promised a fax confirmation which I never received anyway).

I would love to know if anyone has had a worse experience than this, particularly with Citibank.. I find it's therapeutic to write this!

System

Good luck with the Ombudsman. Have you managed to get a 'letter of deadlock' from Citi, in response to a formal complaint to them? If not, the Ombudsman may say they can't consider your complaint, yet.

Can't cap your horror story. In my experience, with Citi, what is automated or routine works. And the euro account is a market leader. However, the doubtless poorly paid and apparently badly trained staff in the call centre cannot cope, whenever what I assume are their automated prompt screens do not tell them how to respond.

I have lost count of the times when I have sent Citi an electronic message with what seemed to me a simple query, and got off-the-point garbage back. It usually takes three iterations before a supervisor or some such responds to the actual query, instead of just making up stuff.

albo2002

what is a letter of deadlock?

I have received a letter from Citibank confirming that they have received my complaint, which the Ombudsman thinks is good progress.

And totally agree with you re their call centre: almost everything they say to me is read off from a script (regardless of how relevant it is to what we're talking about) or simply made up in order to get me off the phone ASAP.

dazza.mk

Letter of Deadlock is when you get a 'Final letter' from Citi saying that they've resolved your complaint (with whatever resolution included), you can approach the ombudsman only after 8 weeks of making the initial official complaints, or having received this final letter (whichever occurs first)

ROSE1

Hi,
I totally understand you frustration - I was literally in tears yesterday because of the Halifax(see my post Halifax - what to do next??) - pretty much the same has happened - debit card expires end of January, no card sent, called them start of month, and here we are five requests later, no active card - they cancelled instead of requesting!, hours on the phone, complaints have called today and I am slightly reassured it may be sorted out, but how can these institutes make such a run of mistakes?? - their communications are appalling which result in the customer being passed from department to department - it is SO frustrating - I will update my post on Monday - they have told me they can confirm card details then - we`ll see...

dunstonh

I have received a letter from Citibank confirming that they have received my complaint, which the Ombudsman thinks is good progress.

Just be wary that you have not spoken to an ombudsman yet. You havent even spoken to an adjudicator. The FOS telephone line is well known for being highly agreeable with people with complaints even where there is no wrong doing. At that stage they will just tell you what you want to hear. You should take no encouragement from it at all.

albo2002

ROSE1 wrote: »

Hi,
I totally understand you frustration - I was literally in tears yesterday because of the Halifax(see my post Halifax - what to do next??) - pretty much the same has happened - debit card expires end of January, no card sent, called them start of month, and here we are five requests later, no active card - they cancelled instead of requesting!, hours on the phone, complaints have called today and I am slightly reassured it may be sorted out, but how can these institutes make such a run of mistakes?? - their communications are appalling which result in the customer being passed from department to department - it is SO frustrating - I will update my post on Monday - they have told me they can confirm card details then - we`ll see...

please do update, as I know how incredibly frustrating it is. It has times really got me down this month!

BTW - an update - I received the card today. I logged online and it wouldn't accept my details. I called Citi to find out why and was told I had "to wait 24 hours from activating the card" until I can access my online account.

I thought about it, and thought that doesn't sound right, and couldn't find anything on their website that confirmed this. So I called back, and was told all I had to do was re-register, which I did, and was able to access my account.

The story about the 24 hours was, I can only presume, a total lie to get me off the phone!

IndigoBlue_2

That is awful. Question - Why on earth are you with citibank? If the reply is because I have a lot of money invested, get out and go to Barclays Wealth or HSBC Premier, they are far FAR better, and you don't have to deal with idiots.

albo2002

IndigoBlue wrote: »

That is awful. Question - Why on earth are you with citibank? If the reply is because I have a lot of money invested, get out and go to Barclays Wealth or HSBC Premier, they are far FAR better, and you don't have to deal with idiots.

I'm with them because I set up an account with them when they had lucrative terms. I will certainly switch now.

Incidentally, the latest with them is that I noticed I was immediately charged £20 for one of the transfers I made, even though I was explicitly told that the fee would be waived.

20 minutes of being on the phone to them later and I'm told that yes, an error was made and the money will be refunded to me. In 48 hours. I ask why isn't the money refunded immediately given that it was taken immediately, and am told: 'This is not possible. Is there anything else I can do for you?'

:mad: