Have you ever had a bad experience with a company and then receive a survey asking you to share your thoughts? You know what I mean – if you’ve ever gotten one of these and thought, “I’m the wrong person to ask, but since you’re interested…..” and then proceed to unload on whoever has to read your response?
That’s just what happened to us and our dealing with Citi’s Fraud Department.
We just signed up for a new Citi card and used it to make a tax payment. Meeting a spending requirement is one reason it makes sense to pay the surcharge for paying taxes with a credit card.
A few days after the payment, we received a voicemail. The person said they were from the Citi Fraud Department and were calling about a new application. We needed to call them back at a number (that was not listed on their card or website) to confirm our information, or future charges would be denied.
Instead of calling the number given, we called the number on the back of the card. We were forwarded to the Fraud Dept and provided the reference number left on the message. They said that the call was to confirm that it was actually us that applied for the card and now everything was fine. But is it really fine, really?
The next day, we received an email asking about our experience with the Fraud Department.
Since you asked, here’s everything wrong with what happened.
On the initial email link, I clicked on 2. That got Citi’s interest.
I need to add that I Googled the number left on our voicemail. Half of the people commenting about similar calls felt it was a scam, even after calling and speaking to someone who asked them to confirm personal information and recent charges to the card.
The next questions didn’t really pertain to our situation. However, I think that paying taxes with a business card is a normal activity. I’d hate to be the person who had to call the Fraud Dept 3+ times to resolve a problem. I guess we were lucky.
Our representative couldn’t explain why Citi called us or what the possible fraud was besides applying for a card from Citi.
These scores are based on my opinion that Citi should not have bothered us with such questions after approving a card, sending it to us, having it confirmed by us while logged into our Citi account and then asking if we were the one who applied for the card.
Having to Google a number for the Fraud department before making a call is not efficient or easy.
We’ve heard many stories about Citi’s customer service but we’ve never experienced it in person. To make things worse, the card in question was in Sharon’s name, so she was the one who needed to make the call. And her motto is, “I hate talking on the phone. Don’t make me talk on the phone.” I’m still trying to figure out how to make it up to her that she needed to make a phone call that we still can’t figure out why it was necessary.
Want to comment on this post? Great! Read this first to help ensure it gets approved.
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and get emailed notifications of when we post. Or maybe you’d like to join our Facebook group – we have 22,000+ members and we talk and ask questions about travel (including Disney parks), creative ways to earn frequent flyer miles and hotel points, how to save money on or for your trips, get access to travel articles you may not see otherwise, etc. Whether you’ve read our posts before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team.