Blogs » sodomizing my vast imagination one blog at a time » They Raised My APR so I Made Her Cry....CitiBank is on the prowl

Subscribe


 
They Raised My APR so I Made Her Cry....CitiBank is on the prowl
By victorianbybirth in sodomizing my vast imagination one blog at a time
June 17, 2009

Greetings from Laredo! It's 108 degrees outside, I am sick & now I am angry. While my TheraFlu is brewing in the coffee pot, I will share my latest life annoyance.

I have been traveling even more than usual lately & twice in the last week by plane. All expenses incurred are paid by me & reimbursed at a later date. I have a personal credit card that I use & I pay off monthly. When I got home this past weekend, I checked my statement online to see where I was at, it was much better than expected, so I didn't bother with it. Monday night I checked again & since I was going to be gone the rest of the week, went ahead & paid the outstanding balance amount (statement hadn't closed yet, no pymt was due). Yesterday I checked to see that the payment posted & not only had it not, but the balance due had increased by $2,000.00 from the previous night, it threw me over my limit (by $400.00) & charged me an over the limit charge. At 11:30pm I checked for the last time & it still hadn't posted though it did say a pymt was posting for 6/16/09. Today, when I got back to the hotel, I checked my statement again & the payment finally posted, I set up payment for the balance that didn't get paid & as I was going to log off, noticed my APR was extremely high (29.99%). I sent an e-mail questioning said APR & recieved a response that I was in default. I freaked out...my card is always paid in full...how did I default? So I called the help desk & got this disinterested woman who said "oh well...too bad so sad, nothing I can do for 12 months"...."yes, you are an exceptional card holder & you have always paid in full, on time, but there's nothing I can do". So I go off on her, telling her how I was rooting for Citi to make it out & for Chase to fail & now I hope they both fail & I'll be damned if 1 cent of my tax $$ goes to keeping them afloat when they give loans & lines of credit to anybody & their 15yr old child & then screw over those that are paying on time. I guess I said some other stuff, as she started crying & told me she personally felt bad about my predicament & she wanted me to be happy because if they keep losing good accounts she's going to be unemployed. Well, I'm beyond redemption at this point so I am less than sympathetic....hindsight now tells me if she really cared, she would have transferred me to an account manager, but she didn't, so I am absolved of the vile words that spewed out of my mouth. I did call back & talked to an account manager who fixed my problem. But still all is not well.

What really bothers me is why do they set limits & not enforce them? Why isn't my account accurate when I check it online when they are supposedly closed (after 5pm EST)? If my payment won't post until the next business day, how can $2000.00 post overnight on my statements closing date? I asked all these questions & I did not recieve an acceptable answer. Mostly "ummm...it shouldn't & I don't know...but I was able to take care fo your current problem..."

I pay off my card every month, so the 29.99% interest was merely offensive & the OTL fee was a slap in the face, but what about people who are tracking their cards online, unable to pay off every month so they just pay down....that APR could be a fatal blow to them. I don't think the consumer should be able to walk away from the fees & APR completely, but I do think the 1st time an event such as this happens, on an account with good history, the credit card company should not immediately nail you to the wall. Even though my situation was taken care of, I am now suspicious & no longer trust CitiBank.