Suvidha Aka Duvidha Account. Review on Citibank

This "Suvidha account" is supposedly my salary account. Where my monthly pay check goes. Naive that I was, I never thought I needed to diversify my eggs in form of a seocnd bank account.

So it all happened like this. My company moved bases to a new shiny spanking building. And along with it obviously I moved too. My citibank mailing address was at my old office address., so I kept receiving correspondence at the old address, which is usually a cryptic piece of junk letter and loads of unsolicited junk mail with promotional material. While the whole companies address was changed. The suvidha account deptt thought otherwise for me I believe. So I was meted special treatment.

Abruptly on August 5th (Saturday Morning) I found I dont have access to my ATM card, my online banking account. Left surprised I checked with citibank officers who said that my service has been stopped because of address change issue. I checked up with my HR on monday 7th and got the request letter with change of address sent in MG road office. And waited and waited. Since it was to be done within 4 business days. I called up on 11th again. And the "Citi Phone officer" after enough haggling gave me an internal tracking number, with which they would check with back office about my letter. 17th was the date they gave me to check my letter. I called up again on 18th and learnt that they can not locate my letter. Now they suggest that I send letter directly to chennai office. And my account is still frozen.

I have been borrowing from friends even though I have balance in my account. I cant pay citi bank credit card bill since its linked to my suvidha account, so they will now charge for late payment too! The rent is going to be due again in a few days. If you want to have your financial life hijacked. Trust it on Citi Bank India. The global Public Sector Undertaking bank.

They kept/keep sending me emails and SMS and what not regarding promotional events.But they couldnt send me one single communication regarding address change before actually freezing my account. Their back office system is like government office of 1980`s with the polished 21th century reply that the complaint is being looked into. In reality nothing gets done. They live in the comfort zone of excuses that the other department is responsible.

Gross misconduct and shoddy professionalism is what comes to my mind when I think of CITI Bank. The bank that sleeps on your money. The bank that is sleeping on my money.

I just wish that my misery at the hands of CITI bank ends. Since CITI Bank has no face. I ask the faceless. Is any one of you listening?

Just as you might be wondering what happened to my account afterwards. Well, I dashed a registered letter, this time to chennai office. Called up the chennai Duvidha.. erm Suvidha department. And finally september 1st, my account came back alive. This has been a harrowing experience overall! Thank you CItibank

Tell me, who are the people who gets their account frozen? erm dirty politicians, criminals and bankrput people. Well I can assure you all, I am none of them. Well all I hope is that the grand citibank lady luck doesnt spring a surprise on you all, like it shined on me. Trust me, its definitely not something you would like to entertain.