Aug 2017
Recently promotional email from this bank reached a high nuisance level.
Firstly I never opted for promotional email. They just started SPAMming my mailbox without my consent.
Now, as such mails are supposed to have, there is an "Unsubscribe" link in those mails. But the whole unsubscribe mechanism is made so complicated as if to force you to give up and quietly accept their stupid SPAM.
Most well behaved businesses provide a single click unsubscribe mechanism. But you don't expect the words "Citibank" and "well behaved" to ever go together.
Here you have to fill a form, with your name, email, city, residential phone, office phone and so on, when all that unsuscribe operation requires is an email id.
Even after taking the pains of filling all that, a dreaded message appears that tells you to wait for a whopping 45 days for unsubscription to take effect.
What age are we living in? Why is such a complicated form needed to merely unsubscribe? Why are 45 days needed to remove your email id from their "spam list"? None of these have anything to do with technology. It's shear unprofessional and cheap behavior of Citibank.
May 2017
They charged me for IRCTC tickets when the schedule of charges given to me clearly shows IRCTC booking to be free for my a/c category.
What they are saying on this is childish. They are saying it's IRCTC and not us who charged you.
I am going to take the complaint regarding not honoring own schedule of charges to banking ombudsman.
13 Apr 2016
Most salaried class people have to submit provisional statement of interest and principal on home loan to their employers. For last few days I am trying to get these statements from this esteemed bank. For such a common and age old requirement they simply do not have a suitable statement format that would show total annual principal and interest repayment figures.
On complaining about it they sent me "corrected statement" with single consolidated figure. However, guess what, both principal and interest figures were a big 0 in both the statements! Was that a practical joke that would have made even ICICI feel proud? Looks like Citi is giving a tough competition to ICICI on who looks the best joker in banking industry.
11 Apr 2016
I am lowering their rating further today. I switched my home loan from a joker called ICICI Bank with hope of a better service.
While I maintain anything is better than ICICI Bank, some of the hassles Citibank made me go through were completely unnecessary. I already mentioned about stupid logic applied for society NoC which they later retracted.
There is a procedure to be followed to register a mortgage with registrar office and the law puts the onus to do so on the customer. Citibank was found awfully unaware. I only had to remind them of this and further they were found completely incompetent in dealing with the matter. They send wrong set of documents to me which the registrar rejected. I have already paid 3 visits to registrar with every time something from Citibank lacking.
Citibank morons did not even know the online procedures to be followed to produce challans etc. It is only thanks to a document I got from HDFC Ltd that explains the registration process nicely in a flowchart, giving URLs etc. that I could complete the procedure. God knows what I'd have done, had I not got that document.
Shameless mortgage team has no regrets about this mismanagement and their arrogance is such that they don't even care to respond to mails.
Despite that this is no match to the arrogance shown by HDFC sales people and fraudulent ICICI Bank. I have to still maintain overall experience to be slightly above those two.(I know HDFC procedures, back end, higher level officials are good, not their third rate sales persons that you have to deal with.)
Depending on your account type Citibank assigns you a joker called "Relationship Manager". Never fall for this. In last 4 months of banking with them, all I got was "out of office" reply to every single mail sent to this joker. He helped in no way in dealing with above stressful situations.
I mentioned before that bill uploading with Citibank is much slower than other banks. I also ran into a billing dispute where Citibank charged me while the biller says he has not received the payment. While I am sure the dispute will be resolved by both parties amicably, it will take its own time and it causes an unnecessarily stressful situation for me.
Having corrected my initial mis-perception about Citibank now, I am looking to switch to another bank in a year or so. I do not know whether my search would ever end in a good bank.
17 Feb 2016
Switching over from worst in the industry(ICICI) to anything else would obviously sound much better.
I still have good opinion of Citibank. But I am lowering the rating today. Their processes are slow. There is a lack of consistency in the way they deal with different customers in the matters like loans.
When trying to avail home loan they insisted on a society NoC mentioning some strange looking terms. So far so good. But they never insisted on such thing for another resident of the same society.
You never know what a bank would ask for in loan transactions. And you can never be sure whether that they demand it from all customers or not. Citibank is no exception to this weirdness.
Still, this experience is far superior to my other loan availing experiences from ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and HDFC, about which I have written in other reviews.
03 Feb 2016
I am a new subscriber to services of this bank, though have availed services of ICICI(a big sigh, read my other reviews), HDFC(sigh, too) before.
On the backdrop of experience with other banks, I can see Citibank has a much better quality of service and transparency.
Account opening process is a little slow as compared to other banks. But staff is very helpful and talks with due respect - this is much much apparent as compared to other banks with thick skinned morons, who it seems are looking for opportunities to insult the customers.
Phone banking is one of the best. It is 24x7. The officers talk very well and resolve your query / issue quite swiftly.
Going to the branch can be a very taxing experience as the branches are few and crowded. However most of the banking does not require going to the branch.
I do not think there is email support, but phone banking is much more effective.
Website for internet banking is quite uncluttered and clean. Transactions are fast with no undue excess walls of authentication(like grid card of ICICI or having to use OTP every now and then for simple simple things).
Some things happen slowly as compared to some other banks - e.g. loading bills for the bill pay, bill pay registration etc. But they keep you informed about the ETAs etc. Despite slowness the transparency establishes the trust.
ATM network is not as good as some of the other banks, but ATM centers are well maintained(don't stink like some other banks), are manned with security and are far less crowded. But you just have to be lucky to have one in your area.
Some reviewers are unhappy with min balance condition etc. I understand their pain. But I think it is imperative for everyone to seek transparency when subscribing to a financial product, know the terms clearly, so that there will be less frustration.
