Woo hoo...I'm free! No more stress, no more defending of horrible policies, no more unprofessional management, no more rip-off commissions and corporate greed, no more! I'll now answer any questions, regarding the customer service end of it, if you have any(limited time offer "the shadow knows"
Congrats on your parole I worked for Sears Credit for about a year in the early 90s. You would think that with that experience I would have better minded my credit Ps & Qs. LOL!
I've a couple of questions. Did you work for a prime or subprime company? ANd, what did your ex employer feel were the top 2 or 3 factors in their internal scoring models. How signicant was a the raw FICO? {OK, I had 3 questions!} TIA
Thanks for the opportunity to ask questions. I've got a couple of questions for you. When you review a customer's credit bureau file, does it include information and/or data that we as a consumer do not see? Would it detail tradelines that were previously deleted from our consumer report? If so, how is that data categorized and/or highlighted as such? Did your own company use a credit scoring system other than FICO that included other variables? If so, what were those variables? Buckets
Pinto, Were you guys trained to say "we can't do anything about that" when customers ask bad notations to be removed from their report?
Pinto, Did the CC company you work for ever try to cover their tracks when they made mistakes or where challenged by consumers for FCRA violations?
Pinto- believe me- I can relate to the relief you now feel that your finally free! I used to work for a CC co as a CSR, as well. HORRIBLE job. I will NEVER work as a CSR again. I remember once they (the cc co) sent out this huge campaign getting people to open accounts-claiming they would get 4.9% for life on balance transfers. Well, if you read the small print it was actually PRIME + 4.9 and a nice cash advance fee to boot. We were flooded with calls from irate card holders... We had to tell them it was THEIR fault for not reading the fine print and NO we could not change their APR. I had people crying over the phone To make matters worse, we were rated on our "retention" rate so we had to fight each and every one of these people to keep their accounts open. Otherwise, our ratings would fall and we'd be fired.
Buckets - I used to do new accounts for a dept. store company back in the 80s... The CBR's that we pulled contained the same data you see- just coded to be more compact. -mj
so many questions, so little time... 1) Prime, it was Citi, I don't care who knows now. Although, judging by the February change of terms just rolled out to default customers, now going to prime + 23.99%, I'd say that they're becoming more sub-prime with rates. 2) Account age, high balances, payment to balance ratio, but then again I was in service, not credit. 3) We could see an internal FICO! I had noticed that most of our cardmember base was 600 and up. Lower then that were usually in default as high risk.
First few questions were not really dealt with in customer service, but I'm sure the New Business Department did. The last question, Citi did use many variables for internal credit scoring, but most were based off the FICO. Account age, late payments, payment to balance ratio, high revolving balances, multiple Citi accounts. But again, most of this was handled in NB.
No. I believe stipulations in the Fair Lending Act state credit card companies must investigate consumer inquiries within 30 days time. Customer service usually provided the Citibank Credit Bureau Dispute address or fax # for correspondence.
I wouldn't know on that one. Customer Service didn't deal with FCRA violations. We just gave an address and fax # for credit bureau disputes.
Pinto, You made reference to number of Citi cards. Does that mean having more than on card is good or bad?
Re: Re: No longer employed at cc company Depends on how you're using the Citi Cards... If they're all maxed out, then yes, that's bad. If they're paid in full and on time every month, that's good.
Re: Re: No longer employed at cc company Pinto, I just have to know!!! I have had my card for nine years now, and was never offered and increase or any other offer. I called once my EQ report was clean for them to pull an inquiry for an increase. It was finally increased from $600 to $5000. I guess my real question is, was there negative notations marked on my account that the CSR saw immediately? I was never late, always paid more than the minimum, and I never was eligible for an internal increase without pulling my report.
Re: Re: Re: No longer employed at cc company I have always wondered the same thing. That is why I allowed BoA to do another hard to reevaluate my account so that "stigma" wasnt there.
Re: Re: Re: No longer employed at cc company Oooh, fresh brain to pick!!: Regarding Citi: How much can a CSR do on the first call regarding CL increases? What is the best strategy for increasing CL on a relatively new account (<12 mos)? Is there a way to gain CL increases within the first 6mos of opening an account, esp without a hard inquiry? What about before the card is even activated? Wow I could go on and on, but these are some that hit me right off the bat. Really appreciate any input!
Re: Re: Re: No longer employed at cc company When Citi CSR's are going through the process to see if a customer qualifies for a cli, the computer will state if the account is immediately eligible for the increase. If it's not initially eligible, without the credit review, the system states the factors causing the hold-up. So typically it would say: DBM(Date Became Member), delinquency/past collections, high revolving balances, payment to balance ratio, credit line requested doesn't meet minimum income requirements, etc.
