This is not the first time the question of fraudulent banking activity has been mentioned on this blog. We have a credit card with Citi. Last month's bill was paid in full, more than a week before the due date. This month's bill has a finance charge for the unpaid portion of last month's bill. Of course, there was no unpaid portion. So we called Citi and asked how they could charge a finance charge on a zero balance. They confirmed that we had paid last month's bill, and had paid it on time. They could not answer the question. Finally, they agreed to send us a check for $50.
We've had credit cards for over 20 years and have never made a late payment, and have never paid less than the full balance. Of course it's hard to believe that a company as large as Citi would be blatantly defrauding their customers. We began to wonder if in these desperate times, could Citi be resorting to desperate measures to stay in business? Has the government given them amnesty for minor "errors" to keep the failing bank alive? Of course we don't know what's going on behind the scenes at Citi, or any other bank for that matter, all we know is that this is the first time in 20 years that we've had reason to call them.
Check all of your bank and credit card statements more carefully than you typically would. Something just doesn't feel right.
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7 comments:
Banks simply do not seem to be our friends these days. They are far from being user-friendly, making frequent errors, all in the banks' favor, not the consumer's. I'm not at all surprised to hear this story.
Furthermore, I have come to believe that banks are and have been spending a LOT of money on programming to track individual accounts of all kinds to find the ones that are vulnerable, and wiggling in little transactions at the exact moment to catch the customer in a situation that creates overdrafts, late charges, over limit fees, etc.
This is about generating revenue for survival of the banks. What it's also accomplishing is the destruction of more and more individuals and businesses through wrongful erosion of credit status, leading to higher interest rates, etc. It's criminal behavior and completely out of control. This is not a new tactic, but its frequency of use has become blatant. It's a LOT of trouble to try to get such errors corrected, and often, there is residual damage to the consumer, despite eventual success. Sickening.
Agr8gem57
Last year I found Citi charges a new fee of $14 if you call them and pay the bill over the phone. There was no charge for this thing before. Fortunately the person told me the new fee and I changed to pay from internet.
Citi waived the finance charge, still unable to figure out where it came from. We're boycotting Citi for a few years. We may try again in 2014, but until then, it's going in a drawer.
What's amazing is how the credit card companies are immune from usury laws that apply to everyone else in society. Still have yet to figure that one out.
sounds like a start of what is going to become the biggest fraud of the history,
whatch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-arbfLTCtI
Interesting that you posted this and then tonight on Fox news they had a blurb about the Credit Cardholders' bill of rights that Congress is pushing and the banks and credit card companies, surprise-surprise, are opposing. They also said many consumer groups are up in arms about abuse in the industry.
link
GOOG will give you thousands of hits on this.
A friend told me the other night about being in a fancy restaurant overseas somewhere. He looked at the bill and it had several things on it they had not ordered. He asked the waiter, "What's all this?" The waiter smiled and said, "Oh, that's it passes if it passes. I'll take it off." He brought back a reduced bill a few minutes later. What you got from Citi was a "if it passes it passes" bill.
Joe
Joe
Anyone have big enough Kahones to hedge with some FAZ or SRS today? Everytime SRS has dipped below $50 it's been money in the bank. Same with FAZ below $20. Both seem dangerous though since they're a play on fighting the Fed and could blow up in your face quite easily.
It is kind of risky here
especially with the decision on Thursday on the mark to market rule. If it's positive which it is suppose to be I would think FAZ would go down and FAS rally but anything can happen in this market. It might be buy on the rumor and sell on the news but you never know. I think if the news is good financials will have a short term rally. Your trade would be good today if the market and financials turn around but I wouldn't count on it or hold it long term.
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