Citibank Reviews 

Citibank is unprofessional and secretive - two things you don't want from a bank.

They closed all their branches in the UK.

They also closed my account for no reason.
I think they are only interested in dealing with businesses and people with over £100,000 in deposits in their 0% interest accounts - i.e. mugs.

If below one star was possible, CitiBank are are more than deserving of this. I have never come across staff so inadequately trained to answer basic questions. Extraordinarily bad experience. It actually sounded at one stage, that I was being scammed.

Citibank never communicates. They make changes to their apps, which makes their apps stop working. They never inform you of these changes unless you call them and they will explain what needs to be done.

I am a frontline healthcare worker and I have been working the COVID19 pandemic since day 1. Last week I found out Citi lowered my credit limit by $1000, after I finally made a large payment to the card. I called to appeal it, was told there was nothing that could be done. It is unconscionable to me that this is how they treat the essential workers they claim to be there for, and I am ashamed to be their customer.

+44 207 986 5588 complaints don’t work!

Tracy

Are you my point of contact?

As the call Center overseas have no idea what’s going on!!! And say they don’t know what to say or do!

I have called over 10 times to request a call back and been told there is nobody in the UK office/ bank working! UK number not in use.

I don’t have a bank manager / relationship manager or neither been assigned one for the last 3/4 years! Disgraceful.

Now You have blocked my account with no valid reason or explanation for a week now and holding me with severe distress and anxiety.

you have cancelled all my direct debits which will and have all ready effected my credit score which is beyond me why??

My money is in the account for this reason but now defaulted on loans, mortgages, cars as well as essential gas, water, electricity and phone.

I have had to borrow money from family and friends to get by on a day to day basis and phone and write to all Direct debit To freeze explain to them what you have done!

I’m currently looking after my 70 father who has had a major heart operation 6 weeks and you think this is ok to just freeze my account with no explanation or human phone call?

Shame on you!

On top of this I was frauded if £4300.00 on the 10th April which you have simply washed your hands with saying it was my fault.

your bank have disgraced yourselves especially in this current situation I’m in and also the country finds it self in.

I would like a human to call me to release my money and to close this account with immediate effect.

I will be seeking legal advice and also contacting the chief financial ombudsman on you and they way your bank have conducted its self and left my total wreck whilst trying to care and provide for my family.

I hope you see me as a Citi Gold 10 year customer and a human being and not just another number and do what’s right.

Regards

Sammy

this bank should be canceled ... it's a shame!

After having been a Citigold customer since 2000 I can stand it no longer. In recent years dealing with this bank’s customer service has become more and more frustrating. Nothing this bank does enhances or facilities the client experience, in fact everything they do seems to make life harder for the customer. Loyalty stands for nothing with this bank. I have found myself constantly chasing for things to be processed, emails are ignored or mismanaged and my relationship manager doesn’t seem to care. I have now fallen below the Citigold minimum threshold and so will be charged a monthly maintenance fee which I am refusing to pay. After being a loyal but frustrated client for many years I have finally decided to transition away from this incompetence!

I have been a customer of the bank since 1985. In November 2019 my accounts were blocked for undisclosed reasons and still remain blocked as I write this review. Several calls made but no one could explain why the accounts were blocked. I have not been requested to provide any information or documentation. I have requested that my accounts be closed and the balances transferred to another bank. They replied that they will not honour my request until they completed their review and no specific deadline was provided. They suggested I could contact the Financial Ombudsman at which point they will cease direct contact with me. Its all like a movie to me that customers can be exposed to such lawlessness by a UK bank without serious consequences. I can't imagine that there are no regulations to protect customers against "protracted review" and denied access to funds. Why can't the bank hand over the case to NCA within 30 days if they suspect any criminal activity instead of exploiting customers for undisclosed reasons.

Try changing your address, the customer services are so impatient, I got hung up on twice when i ask to speak to supervisor.
And when i ask them to speak english, in addition, i didn't swear or get angry. I am sitching to Standard Charter.

Tried to open "High Yield Savings" account (spent about 3 hours OVER THE PHONE ACTUALLY to fill out application!), sent them $2000 and all required documents in the ONE (SAME) ENVELOPE. After almost a month of total silence I decided to call them to figure out what's going on, why they already cashed my check for $2000 but do not send all information about my account? They said that they received my check but did NOT receive required documents to open this account. I asked how that's possible since I sent them check AND ALL DOCUMENTS IN THE SAME ENVELOPE? They said, they do not know but they do not have documents and will close this account automatically since it's now 28th day and on 30th day they will close my account. I said, why you did not tell me that earlier and were in silence the whole month?..no answer from representative... I said ok, and sent them again all documents via FAX (again spent about 2 hours over the phone!)...Two days later I called them to double check if they received my documents via FAX and they said they received them but they need another 7-10 days to review them, I said ok (to be honest, I do not know why it would take so long to review documents since the only documents they asked were any bank statement and driver license...).
Just so you know I have EXCELLENT credit history and I was NEVER denied in a credit card, I had loans to both the apartment and the car which were pay off ALWAYS on time!
So, I waited another 17 days (NOT 10 days) and called them again to find out what's going on, and representative told - "We are sorry it take so long, but we need another week or so." I said ok:))) Another week, and I decided to call them again:)) and what do you think representative told me?:)) "We refuse to open account for you and will send back your check" I asked, why???:) the representative said - "I do not know"... Really????
I waited almost 2 months, spent about 6 hours in total over the phone just to know that they refuse to open account for me?:)) It's unbelievable...
My patience is over, and that was the last time I had something with this I can not say bank, but TRASH!:)

Where can I start, the service you would expect from a giant like Citigroup/ Citibank should be 5 star outstanding right. Well to the contrary it is one of the worst of the worst experiences I've ever come across in my lifetime (and I'm 85). When it comes to taking your money they have a 5 star sale teams, however when it comes to managing your money and resolving account issues it's like climbing mount Everest.

The worst experience from a bank that used to be one of the best
Maybe they should just leave UK so we can bank with serious people
My relationship manager is unknown to me
They just keep the money in accounts providing no service whatsoever
Needless to say that customer service is the worst
Do business with another serious bank that can meet your needs

I opened a savings and checking account totaling over 10,000 and was locked out of my account due to not receiving my debit card. I called 9 times / over 3 hours and kept getting transferred and hung up on. I asked to have my checking and savings closed because i had linked them to my credit cards and could not access my credit cards because i could not access my checking until the debit card arrived. I finally got someone to unlink my credit cards so i could create an accessible account for them and still do not have access to the banking and savings account and Do not know what is going on with the money i have in them. The debit card arrived today and i am still unable to access the account with that info.

"Unable to Verify the Sun in the Sky"

Citibank authentication systems are so erroneous that your account is at risk of being blocked at any time for any reason, or no reason at all!!

So they decide to update their app. All the sudden my online banking is blocked and I can't make transfers. I call 3 separate times and everybody's like:

"I don't know why your accounts blocked everything seems fine."

I explain over and over again that I have literally no use of any of my accounts in the portal.

Then they tell me they're updating their app and to go to citibank.com and update all of my information in order to verify my account.

This after providing the following:

-name
-"full name"
-"Middle name"
-SSN#
-Phone #
-Secondary Phone #
-Account #
-Card#
-Physical Address
-Mailing Address
-Mother maiden name
-Acount Code Word!!!

So I go through all that. And yet, somehow, they decided to deactivate all of my phone numbers and then told me my address was "hypothethical?"

Errr...You mean a PO box??

What??!!

After 3 years you randomly decide to freeze me out of all my stuff?

Then I call back and they've regained their senses enough to acknowledge my account and the fact that I'm a citibank customer.

Yay!!

But their system "won't allow them" to send me a message through my newly-updated-online-as-requested phone number to verify my account.

So they LOCK ME OUT OF MY ACCOUNTS again and tell me to come into the branch would 2 forms of ID.

Best part about this,

They then decide to just erase my checking account from my online banking portal altogether.

So now, the Thursday before PAYDAY, the checking account where I receive my direct deposit, just "doesn't exist" for all intents and purposes.

The night before PAYDAY!

But, but, but-- there's more-

"THEY'RE REALLY SORRY AND EXPECT TO FIX THE PROBLEM RIGHT AWAY"

...riiiight, pfft

Terrible Service. Fine, till there is a problem, then a nightmare. I have wasted at least 6 hours ringing US from UK, as my card has not been working the last 4 days! Every person I speak to says they fix the problem, but nobody does.
These are important purchases that have a time limit on them. I do not expect a service like this, and will be cancelling my account unless there is a radical difference in a short time.

Account closed due to the level of Poor service.

I wish I had seen these other reviews before I started even looking at opening an account with Citibank. Two months ago I began looking into a term deposit but understood that I required an account to do this. After discussing this with customer service I opened this easily enough online and went to address the term deposit. Unfortunately, I had opened the 'wrong' account as they only offer term deposits from a day to day account. Again instructed by Customer Service I began trying to open a day to day account. This has now taken 6 weeks to just open the account. Every week I have to call them to find out what they have done to the processing of the account, each week I get asked to send the same material, albeit with a little variation. At one point I was even told by customer service I had to print out and hand-write the entire application, which in this day and age is just ridiculous. Of course, the processing team don't take calls, you have to deal with these polite but pointless call centre people who seem to understand that you are being dealt a dis-service but have no capacity to go off-sheet and actually be able to help in achieving an actual result. I've just had the Customer service operator just ask me again for the same document, which would be the 5th time I've sent all variations of this bleeding thing, I've said no more. I didn't even want their crappy account and I told them as much, a few percent extra on a term deposit is not going to make me un-feel this incompetence, and for a financial institution - it's just sending alarm bells ringing, LOUDLY!! Now that I have read the below reviews I'm kind of happy I only sent $20 across to the savings account. If getting your money out is as painful as trying to get money in, I'm glad I learned early. If anyone reading this is thinking about opening an account. Don't, there's better out there.

7 years a customer - have just closed my account and even that has been painful and resulted in mystery charges. Absolutely awful - everything reported on this site is true and actually I think the regulators need to start taking in interest into especially customer charges and their payments capability. Do not go anywhere near them.

I have banked with Citi since the 1990’s when they were ahead of the competition, had a UK or US call centre, offered fantastic customer service etc.

I moved my main UK account when they closed down their UK branches and maintained my Citi account as we have a property in the Caribbean so it has been handy to use for $USD transfers until now...

My latest transfer failed due to the failure of Citi to use the correct information for my beneficiary which I have sent funds to on previous occasions, even though they used the same details it still went wrong!

I have spent hours on the phone and have eventually had the funds returned after 6 weeks of hassle, I am now arguing over $30 which they have deducted to transfer my own money back to me!

In all of this the customer service has been appalling, the operatives are polite but useless, they get everything wrong and you have to repeat the sorry story every time that you speak with them.

I will be closing my account..useless!

I joined Citibank way back in 1996 because they were initially ahead of the curve with telephone banking etc before others had it, and offered foreign currency savings accounts which were convenient to me at the time.

I've noticed a steady, perceptible decline in service over the years as they've farmed their very high net worth clients into a London based service, where everyone else has been shoved off to a call centre in (I think) the Philippines.

Customer service is terrible. The company "lost" £150,000 of mine in March 2018 which I had transferred from a regular UK savings account and required for a property completion. They had apparently ringfenced the transaction - which they do routinely - but would not tell me they had done so. It simply disappeared for 4 days with no way to trace it, their refusing to give codes to my savings bank to try to see what had happened etc. Their supervisor was aggressive, verging on rude - and once you've gone up one level of complaint there is no way to progress it any further.

They have now lost a further £500 of mine which bounced back the same day from a now-closed HSBC account I had accidentally transferred it to. A week later and 7 calls on and I'm no closer to finding out when the money (which has been received by Citibank) will be reapplied to my account. They routinely promise to call and text with updates and fail to do so.

It's the final straw - I'm leaving this lousy set up who couldn't care less about customer service or satisfaction. Their internet banking is currently down (a common occurrence) and it takes 2 minutes of listening recorded messages and annoying pinging music, and a robotic automated greeting that is straight from the 1980s, to get through to a non-native English call centre. Once there, each time you have to explain everything from scratch to someone who frequently can't understand you.

Dire, dire, dire - oh and be warned, you can't simply transfer your account to a new bank as Shittybank don't take part in the account transfer scheme. You will have to move each and every direct debit over manually and any payments that come in once you've left will bounce back rather than being forwarded to your new bank. This doesn't happen with any other proper UK bank.

I cannot recommend more strongly NOT going with Citibank.