I swear to someone above, I am just ready to file BK and tell everybody eat it and die. We got a letter last month from Citi telling us our interest rate was dropping because of our payment history. Man, I was sooooo excited, I could use all the help I can get. I just looked online at my new statement. They moved our balance from standard purchases to purchases/advance. WTF??????? Bottom line, my interest rate stayed the same, and my finance charge this month was higher then last month!!!!!!!!! I'm ready to walk away and tell them to kiss my little redneck a$$.
jlynn, Do not give up. Call them up and ask for your old rate back or put your charges back in the purchases category. Be sure to sound sweet and sincere. HTH, Willis
Thanks for the kind words, my old rate was supposed to be higher (default), and I was promised to be dropped to their standard rate. They did do that, but the moved my balance from "standard purchase" (with new rate), to purchase/adv at the old rate. I NEVER took any kind of cash advance on this account. Now, with that being said, I can honestly say I have not spent alot of time figuring out the inner workings of credit card bills. My fault...not a top priority for me right now. But let me ask this...I pulled my last three statements (since they started charging me interest again), and here's my observation: 5/14 Prev Balance = 1581.40 Subject to finance charge = 1565.26 6/13 PB 1570.10 Subject to... 1590.96 7/16 Prev Balance 1564.33 Subject to 1602.33 Granted, the balances aren't going down much because I have been snowballing with another small card. My question is how can my balances be going down each month, while the amount subject to finance charge is going up each month? Basically, I'm to the point the minimum they billed me last month didn't even cover the finance charge this month. In other words, my new ending balance is now 1573.94. I just don't understand!
I hope everything works out for you jlynn. You're so nice. Always taking the time to help others with their financial problems.
Does it have anything to do with NUMBER OF DAYS IN THE BILLING CYCLE??? I have had between 20 days and 35+ days on the same card!!! (might not be CITIBANK THOUGH)
George I don't know. 5/14-6/13 = 30 days 6/13 - 7/16 = 33 days. Not that big of a discrepancy. Also something strange maybe some of you Citibanker's might can explain. I mentioned they moved my entire balance from Standard Purchase to Purchase/Advances. On my statement closing 7/16/2003 it says: Purchase Advance thru 6/13/2003. What does this mean? I could really really use some help from the credit card and math gurus.
Jlynn, I cannot understand that either. Nor have I heard of such of thing. Called the reps with your bills in hand and ask them to explain it. Best case - it was a mistake and that change the 'subject to' to coincide with the previous balance. Also, call late at night - an old Cnetter that worked as a rep posted this a while back - because the reps are bored, sleepy, and less stressed. So, you usually can get better results. Also, do not get hostile no matter how much the urge hits you - it will only defeat the purpose. You want to paint your picture clearly so the rep will empathize and help you. I have a universal card which is owned by Citi and their reps have been very helpful to me. Any reps out there that may be able to shed light? Keep us informed. Willis
Call them up and explain it to them. If that doesnt work PFB them. I recently had great success through PFB with Citi. It cant hurt.
JLynn - Sorry, I missed this earlier. I'm assuming you haven't had any charges added to this bill. What you should see on the bill is the following: A balance from the previous month. A payment. An interest charge. A new balance. The average daily balance is affected by "when in the month" the payment and the interest charge get added. But in almost all accounts that I've ever had, the interest charge gets added on the last day of the cycle. If that is true for this card, then the average daily balance mathematically cannot possibly be larger than the previous balance. The average daily balance is also not directly altered by the length of the billing cycle. The total interest charge is (since it equals daily interest rate times average daily balance times number of days). So check when they add the interest. If it's on the last day, their math is wrong. If it's not on the last day, they're a bunch of sleazebags using a cheap trick to pump up their interest charges above the stated APR. Discover did something similar to me. They raised my interest rates, then when I said I wanted to close the card to retain the old rates, they closed it and moved everything to the highest interest rate category of the three on the bill. I ended up paying even more with a closed card. They'll get your money any way they can.
Also, just for amusement, note this cheap trick: A card has two balances, one at 12% (assume 1% a month), one at 24% (assume 2% a month). Their minimum is 2.5% of total balance. Check this out: Month 1: 5000 @ 12%, interest = $50 5000 @ 24%, interest = $100 Total interest = $150 Payment = $250.00 They apply the payment to the low balance. They add all the interest charges to the high balance. So you end up with: 4750 @ 12%, interest = $47.50 5150 @ 24%, interest = $103.00 Total interest = $150.50 Payment = $247.50 Your interest goes up as you pay it off more and more slowly. Neat trick, eh?
JLynn, There's something that could easily explain why the "balance subject..." keeps going up. That would be that each month you paid your bill later in the cycle, closer to the due date. They add accumulating interest to your average daily balance even before they charge it to your account. So the later you pay, the more interest is built into the "balance subject..." Sometimes if you make a larger payment, your average daily balance will be lower than your starting balance. But if you make small payments and/or pay very late in the cycle, your average daily balance will almost always be higher than the starting balance.
Re: Re: Citibank Hell That sounds right. I called AMEX because the online system wouldn't let me pay my bill even though I have a balance that I wanted to pay off. The rep I spoke with said it was because my "statement hasn't printed yet." I could not get an answer as to why the system won't allow me to pay my bill online because "there is no balance on this account" when it clearly shows I have a balance.
Was anyone as disappointed as me that no one wanted to follow this case to some sort of resolution? It's fine to commiserate about banks that really try to cheat their customers, and examples abound. But it's hard to find a better bank than Citibank. If they appear to be treating one of us shabbily, we should really try to find a reasonable explanation, and not just write off Citibank like we would Fleet, Providian, or Capital One.
I second that. I have banked with Citi for many years and except for a few time have never had a problem. If I did they took care of it.
