A SHITIBANK CARD. Review on Citibank MasterCard Credit Card

Shopping on line to applying for various examinations to study abroad. Today there would be umpteen reasons why one may have to disclose his/her credit/debit/charge card number on the net. It is well known how dangerous that can be. The solution: e-card. When a friend first told me of the concept of e-card facility offered by Citibank, I was quite keen on it. Simply because, the idea of me, being able to set up a separate limit of my choice, for transactions on net, appealed to me very much. That way I would not have to disclose my credit/debit/charge card number and set up a far lower limit, for net-transactions, bringing down the risk, in case the e-card number was misused.

Just a few weeks of hearing about this concept of e-card, I got a call, telemarketing personnel wanting to sell a “Cttibank Diners charge-card”. He promptly fixed up and appointment with me. Before signing up, I made it very clear that I was only subscribing to “Citibank Diners charge-card” for the facility of e-card, because only Citibank offered an e-card. I also made it clear that in spite of the fact that the annual charges of a Citibank “charge-card” was as high as any other establishment’s “credit-card”, I was subscribing to their card simply because of the e-card. He filled out all the forms, including what he claimed to be a form that would allot an e-card number to me. He informed me that I would receive the e-card number in a “sealed” envelope, very similar to the way that everybody gets their ATM PIN number when they subscribe to any credit/debit/charge card. Soon I got my charge card, but, no e-card number. In just a couple of days, I also got my “sealed envelope” containing my ATM PIN (APIN) number, but yet, no e-card number. I called their customer service and asked for it. I was informed that no such application was under process and that I would have to log on to their site and get one online. I tried doing that. First I was asked me for an HPIN, since I didn’t have my HPIN, I was guided to another page where by I was to fill up my charge card number and my ATM PIN (APIN) number to get my HPIN. I filled up the card number and my APIN, and I was taken to another page where I was again made to fill-in my charge-card number and a password of my choice. This password would be my HPIN number. “Gosh !!! I thought what a painfully long way to set up a password that these people give a fancy name called HPIN !!!” Having set up the HPIN I continued on their site trying to log in. Again I was required to fill in my charge-card number and this time my HPIN number. I filled them in clicked “submit” waited waited waited waited waited ZILCH NOTHING the page simply refused to go any further. I called the customer service and complained. He made me change my HPIN and try again, he made some inquiries putting me on hold for several minutes, he made me make several changes to my settings, including (what seemed to be the most hilarious of all) changing the “Amount of disk space to use:” for the “Temporary Internet files folder” settings. And yet, after about half an hour of my being on line, I did NOT get my e-card. He told me he would check with the internet department and call me back the next day. The next day he called, and we went through the same painful procedures again (starting from getting myself a new HPIN and so on), without any success. I was really annoyed. Firstly I was to get my e-card by mail in a sealed envelope, I didn’t. When I complained, instead of mailing me one, they made me go to their website, from one page to another, change several settings on my PC, and yet, NO E-CARD. I simply asked the customer service personnel to give me my balance so that I could pay up my dues and have my card cancelled. This is another problem, paying your dues I mean. Now, if you want to pay cash, there is NOT ONE branch/agent of Citibank in Bombay that accepts cash payments over-the-counter. One has to go to an ATM center and pay up there.

ADVANTAGES OF CITIBANK DINERS CARD (if there are any) : I can, at present, think of absolutely no advantage of subscribing to a Citibank Card against any other card. It is just a widely accepted as any other card. The customer service is as polite and as efficient/inefficient as any other card. The e-card was the only advantage Citibank offered, (which was never allotted to me).

CITI-PHONE EXPRESS SERVICE:

They proudly call their customer-service department, Ctiti-phone-express service, but they are cumbersome as any other. In fact I would say even more cumbersome, because after being guided, by a recording, into having punched in your card number on the phone, you are once again required to recite the same to the “citiphone-officer”. “Great !!, why the hell did the recording ask me to punch in my card-number in the first place, if you wanted to hear it from me anyway”

All in all if you don’t have any other card, if you are prepared to pay the same subscription for a “charge-card” as you would using another establishment’s “credit-card” then go ahead and take the SHITIbank-crad, but don’t expect anything out of the ordinary that they claim themselves to be.