Citibank Complaint

Hi xxxx, I was approached last year by Citibank folks who wanted me to use the ready credit line. I refused many times, however your people were very persuasive and asked me to only “sign-up” for the ready credit, and that I would be given a gift voucher. So I met a person called Anush D’Souza on 5th May, 2005, from InvestOne Unique Sales, who verbally assured me that the ready credit would NOT be activated and NO funds would be transferred to my account and there would be NO charge whatsoever. Still, to protect myself I cancelled the application form, and have written Rs. 0 and Rs. ZERO in bold as the amount to be transferred. I still have the application form if you require it. However, next month, Rs. 1000 was transferred to my account and out, and an interest charge of Rs. 27 was debited. I complained to Citibank regarding this, was passed through different people, all of whom assured me that the amount would be reversed. Nothing was done, and finally, a few months later I gave up. Now, I get this mail from Citibank “informing” me that Rs. 750 will be charged to my account for availing the ready credit facility based on earlier communicated information. This quite clearly smacks of malpractice, and is against the Fair Practice Code because: 1. I have not availed of the ready credit, and have made complaints regarding the same. 2. Citibank has definitely NOT informed me of such a charge, either verbally or in writing. In fact I was told unequivocally that there will be NO charge. Moreover, Citibank has been negligent of the following clause of the Citibank’s Global Consumer Bank Fair Lending Practices Code:

FURTHER ASSISTANCE If the customer want to make a complaint, we will tell them how to do this through notices displayed at the branches or the customer can call CitiPhone Banking or send an email to indiaservice.com. Within two (2) weeks of receiving a customer complaint, we will send a written acknowledgement. After examining the matter, it will be our endeavor to send the customer our final or other response within eight (8) weeks and we will tell a customer how to take the complaint further if the customer is still not satisfied. After I made the complaint last year, I did not get any written acknowledgement after 2 weeks, neither did I get your final response within 8 weeks. I cannot make a complaint to the Banking Ombudsman right away regarding this whole issue because I have to follow this clause:

No complaint to the Banking Ombudsman shall lie unless: 1. The complainant had before making a complaint to the Banking Ombudsman made a written representation to the bank named in the complaint and either the bank had rejected the complaint or the complainant had not received any reply within a period of one month after the bank received his representation or the complainant is not satisfied with the reply given to him by the bank. So, I am sending you this complaint first, and if it does not get rectified, then I will go to the Ombudsman.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this is very shoddy service, and does not encourage me in anyway to bank with Citibank in the future. This is one more incidence in a growing line of problems that I have faced with Citibank. Regards, xxxxx