I don’t know if when I joined ATT Universal Card they belonged to Citibank; I never saw the name ‘Citibank’ or their logo in any statement or communication. If I would have known I wouldn’t have taken the credit card in the first place; Citibank never appealed to me due to a disagreeable encounter I had with one of their pushy sales representatives. When I found out they were the same, I had been with ATT Universal Card for years and they were one of my favorite credit cards, so I figured I would keep it anyway.
Then, recently, a few months after having paid my balance in full, Citibank sent me a letter telling me that my account would be closed because I wasn’t using the card and apparently “it didn’t fit my needs” or something to that effect. I didn’t object, although I was getting ready to use it; this was the sort of thing I could expect from Citibank and I didn’t really want to do business with them.
But there was never any agreement that I had to use my card at any given time. There was never any warning either, just the letter closing my account “even if I used the card before closing date”. It was unethical behavior that verified that I had been right about Citibank; it is the kind of institution that we should boycott to get our country going in the right direction. Why should a credit card company tell me when I or how often I should use my credit card?
By the way, weren’t they subprime lenders that required a 25 billion bailout?
To prop my case I quote from Wikipedia: “In August 2008, after a three year investigation by California’s Attorney General Citibank was ordered to repay the $14 million (close to $18 million including interest and penalties) that was removed from 53,000 customers accounts over an eleven year period from 1992-2003. The money was taken under a computerized “account sweeping program” where any positive balances from over-payments or double payments were removed without notice to the customers.”
An interesting site to visit for more information on Citibank and similar institutions:
My Treasure Is Taken by My Credit Card Company
“It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret.”— Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Filed under: Scams etc... | Tagged: Bailout, Boycott, Citibank, Subprime Lending, Unethical | Comments Off on Citibank and ATT’s Universal Card | Shouldn’t we Boycott?
Rio Guzman's Journal 