A Review of Citi Personal Loans and Lines of Credit

I have used Citi's credit cards for years. I have never made a late payment or had any other type of problem. When I received a mail to apply for a Citi personal loan, I was not surprised when I was immediately approved. The entire process was quite simple.

For loans and lines of credit, the Patriot Act requires the bank to obtain the customer's physical address. This wouldn't be a problem if companies asked if there was a separate mailing address. Neither Citi's mailed applications nor their website has the option to enter a mailing address.

I contacted Citi to have them add my mailing address. Citi assured me that they would send all mailings to my post office box. However, that never happened. Everything was mailed to the physical address including their junk mail.

After getting a higher paying job, I decided to pay off my high interest rate liabilities. At a 14% interest rate, paying off my Citi loan became a priority. I paid it off last year, which was a few years early.

Earlier this year, I was approved for a Citi Flex Line of Credit to use for debt consolidation. When I was informed that it had a variable interest rate, I cancelled the loan. Similar to the last time, my physical mailing address ended up on Citi's marketing list. It took several phone calls to be removed from the list.

A few months ago, I applied for another Citi personal loan. Since I declined the Flex Line of Credit because of the variable interest rate, I wanted to wait before applying for another loan. I was really shocked when I applied for this loan. Citi now forces everyone who applies for a loan to open a Citi checking account.

Considering I was a long time customer of Citi, I did not appreciate being arm-twisted into opening a checking account that I did not want. I was told that the checking account would automatically be closed if I was denied for the loan.

I received a phone call a few days ago from an automated system saying to call Citi because my account was over-drafted. I was really confused by this message since my credit cards are the only Citi product I currently have. I called the phone number in the message and got another automated message. It stated that this was not a telemarketing call and provided yet another number to call.

When I finally reached a person, I was assured that the fees would be reversed and the checking account closed.

The following day, I received another automated call so I called in again. The representative said she could not do anything without an account number. I explained how I never received the documents about the account since it was supposed to be closed. When she continued to refuse to help, I asked for a manager.

The manager assured me that the fees would be reversed and the account closed. It was never explained why this wasn't handled when I called in the previous day.

The very next day, I received yet another automated phone call. It seems that closing a Citi checking account is not a simple process. I didn't bother to call in, hoping that the computer system and the automated phone system needed time to sync.