Jul 10, 2004 10:06 AM
2709 Views
(Updated Jul 10, 2004 10:06 AM)
One fine day three years back I got a credit card delivered to me at my doorstep. Little did I realize then it was a start of financial harassment by the reputed and financially sound Citibank. I started using the card under very unavoidable circumstances and sometimes to help friends also. But suddenly the bills were becoming too much with service charges like hell. Anyway I wanted to discontinue the same. A pretty bad experience I thought but the worse was yet to come.
After initial bungling with my collection agents I came to an understanding to pay the money in full with some deduction on the second years fee since my card has been without any transaction and I felt it was deserving to get that waived off. Everything seemed good when they said they will pack my bills – mind you this happened in Feb 2002.
They said they will take some time to actually set aside with their budget to do that and some terminology was given. Six months I was still getting my old bills with a request to pay. I went back seeking clarification at their e-serve office. There was a system error – too good for a company like Citibank – I asked them if they were not ashamed to say a reason like that. Probably they weren’t.
Almost again six month later, I get a letter addressed to me saying I need to pay some X rupees with a help stating I could call one Mr. X to seek any clarification. I spoke to him and he said they would discontinue the whole thing. It is almost eight months now nothing has happened. My last transaction was almost in Oct 2001 and the card is almost defunct still they are hopeful of milking somebody their hard-earned money.
The faith I had in them has eroded like hell and I am determined not to take any service from them. The basis of such a transaction is only on trust and Citi is not bothered about that.
I sincerely hope if you have friends selling cards don’t ever refer them to anybody. If you do that you might be hurting your friend but will be saving a lot of families from disaster.
Cards have come to really make life simple but complicated in the long run.
