Citibank Credit Card - God theyre slooooooooow

JasonW_2

With my somewhat dodgy credit history, but as far I am concerned, is now pretty good, and been declined for Sainsburys, and Egg card, I decided to try Citibank.

Applied on the 21st Feb for their platinum card and was accepted online, so thought WOOHOO, but they did say if you apply for the platinum you may get offered an alternative card. This was before I had cleared off my balance of my main BOS card, and was at the time still waiting to see if Tesco would offer me a 0% period. I was hoping to just get a 0% rate to help me. Since then Tesco have agreed to the rate, so that card is now empty, but thought I might as well just still go for the Citi card, and rebuild my history by opening the card and closing it later this year when Ive made use of it, by which time, (hopefully) all the searches will not count against me, as it will be around November, not that I really intend to apply for anything at this time, but was just incase I had to. I figure that since I now have the search, I may as well take the card.

Ive called them 3 times now to see what happens next as I heard nothing. They say the have sent me the credit agreement to sign but it will take "7-10 working days" and then once I send that back, I will get the card within "7-10 working days". Now Im in no hurry for the card, but they still cant tell me what card Ive been accepted for or what the limit is. To be honest, Im not bothered, but its just the length of time its taking. I did stress I was simply worried it had got lost along the way, and someone had sent the agreement back, but they just constantly quote their little piece of text. They did say the agreement had been POSTED a few days after the 21st Feb, and Ive had all my other mail without any delays. Now, I am not being racist saying this, but it appears all their call centre staff are indian and they are very hard to understand, and they dont seem to realise or care what I say, as if they dont have a reply to read for a question, they just say the same thing over and over.

Does anyone have experience with Citi and did they take as long to even send a letter out?

JW

Walletwatch

Have a Citicard myself, and did not have any problems / delays in getting it. I have, on a couple of occasions, had problems with them, and have had to interact with the call center guys, an experience, I must say, has been far from easy. I do think that the problem seems to be more one of training and understanding of internal processes and the terms and conditions, rather than a communication problem.

No harm in calling a spade a spade, nothing racist about it. I myself am from India, but I would any day prefer to call them during working hours (when the phones are attended by local guys here), and not the call-center guys. This is because, in my experience, the locals are more clued on about the internal processes, and are more solution-oriented (possibly because they are Citibank employees, and not call-attendants on contract, and hence have more latitude to resolve the issue)

I must say, while I don’t really see your comments as racist, they do seem to stereotype a cross-section of people, and that, I find objectionable.

Try talking to someone local (call during office hours on 0800 783 7788) and I think you’ll get a much better response.

booogle

I've had problems with citibank with regards to credit cards and current accounts. Everything takes forever, things don't get done unless you chase and chase. The current account admin of opening an account took about 3 months! I've been in the repeatable scenario when they say it'll be with you in xx working days, and you say you've already been waiting several weeks and they just repeat it'll be with you in xx working days but nothing ever arrives. I think there are training issues for sure. I doubt I will ever use them again.

Milarky

I applied for their platinum card online too - about a month earlier than you did - and got accepted for a classic card instead. It took longer than expected but the agreement was sent out 28th January [I got it about 2nd Feb] was signed and returned by me. Then a week later a second offer letter [identical to the first] was received - which I ignored. I phoned them on 14th Feb and asked about my account. They were able to balance transfer as the account was active even though I did not finally recieve the card until 22nd Feb.

Going by this it would take you about a month to get the card.

CTT_2

I have had the above card with Citi Bank for about 8 years and find it is a card worth waiting for. They are always offering very low transfer rates and in particular the last offer was 1.9 and no transfer fee.
Also I find their Call Centre in India very efficient. The operators are not prone too emotional outbursts and really know the meaning of *CUSTOMER SERVICE*.

Walletwatch

CTT wrote:

I have had the above card with Citi Bank for about 8 years and find it is a card worth waiting for. They are always offering very low transfer rates and in particular the last offer was 1.9 and no transfer fee.
Also I find their Call Centre in India very efficient. The operators are not prone too emotional outbursts and really know the meaning of *CUSTOMER SERVICE*.

Yes, CTT, you're right, the recent offers have been pretty decent - the 1.9% BT for six months with no fee, etc. While I haven't been as impressed with the call-center folks, since we speak of reasons why Citi is worth the wait, I must say the following:

Citi strikes me as a bank that is focussing more on the Treasury and Corporate Banking sectors than the Retail one at least in the UK, which has its pluses and minuses. They (the local guys who actually exercise control) are quick to acknowledge gaps in service and compensate you - have got £45 on their cards and £50 on their Bank accounts so far due to lapses on their part (which were not earth shattering for me, to be honest, apart from a fifteen minute phone conversation with the right people) They also do not charge you money if you exceed the credit limit marginally, which others do.

daveboy

Any company that pulls the fast one of employing people in Asia to answer their customers calls should be kept well away from in my opinion.

No doubt that comment falls foul of the law - it being Britain where you can't say anything without someone else complaining about it.

If a company is either based in the UK, or is an international company with premises in the UK, it should employ people from the UK.

I await the complaints of racism.

JasonW_2

Thanks for the replies everyone, seem they are just generally slow then, but worth it in the end. Well, I will wait a while longer and see what happens and what card I am offered, and may ditch Tesco and keep Citi.

I just dont get why they are so slow. At first I thought the paperwork was coming from India or somewhere around there, but the 3 people I spoke to assured me it was London. No mail this morning, so that will be 2 weeks exactly on Monday since I applied. I am just getting more annoyed now that it is taking so long. I may call the UK call centre people and see if they can shed any light. I dont want to comment further on the indian call centre, as some people are taking offence where none was meant. I guess I am one of those people who have problems with understanding different languages and strong accents, especially on a phone. I never quite know if they understand what I am asking or not. Will leave it there though

The bonus transfer rates would come in handy, but do you have to opt into "junk mail" to get these offers, or are they in with your statements?

Cheers, J

Walletwatch

daveboy wrote:

Any company that pulls the fast one of employing people in Asia to answer their customers calls should be kept well away from in my opinion.

No doubt that comment falls foul of the law - it being Britain where you can't say anything without someone else complaining about it.

If a company is either based in the UK, or is an international company with premises in the UK, it should employ people from the UK.

I await the complaints of racism.

No complaints of racism from me here, but the parochialism of some people when they discuss outsourcing jobs in general never fails to surprise me.

Since the early 1990s (maybe even earlier), the developed countries of the world have been urging the developing countries (often used euphemistically for less better-off countries, but used here in the true sense of the word, given the consistent high levels of growth in GDP of countries like India and China in the past few years) to open up their markets and allow them to sell finished goods in their respective markets. The message was loud and clear - to 'globalise' by opening up their respective markets. This obviously suited these large corporates, some of which actually ended up using these countries as dumping grounds for substandard stuff. They lobbied with their respective governments, in some cases, actually arm-twisting these countries into opening up their markets.

Now, I am all for globalisation and freedom of choice for consumers, and all that. Also in my opinion, if a domestic industry is not able to deliver as much value as that of the global player, it is only fair that it goes out of business, instead of expecting its government to stop imports by placing restrictions.

Times have however changed now, and due to the world becoming a smaller place and all that, we see global organisations being able to consider moving all its back-end operations to low-cost locations like India and China, in the interest of maximising profits. I view this as just another chapter in the saga of globalisation, and if the previous measures towards globalisation were adopted and adapted to, there is no reason this one shouldn't.

While I agree that the Citi call-center being discussed here is not the best in the business, maybe Citi should pull up its socks and take its business elsewhere, else it is going to end up losing equity with its customers. The comment "If a company is either based in the UK, or is an international company with premises in the UK, it should employ people from the UK" is definitely a backward step though.

At the risk of sounding pedantic, I have to say, one needs to adapt to changes taking place globally. If you decide to shy away from companies that use resources within other countries for their UK operations, rest assured you will soon run out of banks (or pretty much players within any industry for that matter) you can do business with.

booogle

I deal with various banks, IT departments, ulitilities companies etc that have call centres based off shore. I generally find they are as good as UK call centres.

What I will say is that my experience of the citbank call centres is that they do tend to just repeat the same statements over and over, don't seem to understand me, don't know the products well, don't know their own procedures, and promise things that don't happen.

On the plus side, I stopped using their credit card and after a few months they wrote to me offering me 1% cashback if I started using it again!

JasonW_2

Jeeeeez, I phoned that 0800 number, but every option except lost or stolen, you have to key in your card number. So, I just pressed option 1 for lost or stolen, and explained and she said no problems.

After the hassle of trying to get them to understand my name, postcode and date of birth - which isnt 29th of the 22nd month :rolleyes: 1997 - she tells me they are waiting on my credit agreement being returned. That might be cos Im STILL waiting on a credit agreement arriving here that I can sign. She has ordered another one and it will take..........















7 to 10 working days!! If I was desperate for a card, I would tell them to forget it.

JW