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Agreed. I personally carry a Citi card (double cash) because it has the best (for me) rewards, but I also carry an AMEX blue cash preferred for which I pay an a

Agreed. I personally carry a Citi card (double cash) because it has the best (for me) rewards, but I also carry an AMEX blue cash preferred for which I pay an annual fee. The customer service I get from amex is DRAMATICALLY better than from Citi. With Citi: * it's non-native-English support. No judgement of course but I don't appreciate the language barrier when the entire job of customer support is communication. * Support generally seems to be very low-context and low-power. The person you talk to generally can't actually do anything, only escalate. * Support seems very disjointed and prone to missing details. I was burned by Citi support in a pretty big way: 1. I was moving cross-state, and we were selling (under contract) our old house and not yet closed on the new one. In between, we were living with my parents. 2. Literally the first day we were at my parents, some fraudy charges showed up on my citi card. I called, they cancelled the card, etc. I told them I was not currently at my address on file, I was at my parents, is this OK, etc. They said yes, that's fine, they'll send replacement cards to the new address. I very specifically verified with them that they were sending them to the right place, and the person even got a little tired of me being so tight about it. Ok, I figured, I feel like I've gone above and beyond on my end to make sure this works right. 3. 2 days later, I see on my security camera that the old cards have been delivered to the front door of the old house, 300 miles away. 4. I call back, and they tell me they don't see any record of me having requested a different address. Sigh. I ask if they can cancel those cards and re-send them to the right address this time. They say yes, we go through the loop again, etc. 5. I wait a day or two and no cards show up at either location. I call back again. I get told there's no record I asked to cancel these cards or re-send them. This rep finally tells me they can't re-issue the cards again so soon, and need to wait 5 more days. In the meantime, these active cards are just sitting on my porch in a big envelope that says "CITI - URGENT - PLEASE STEAL ME" written all over it. And, you know, I really needed to use this card since I was trying to buy appliances for the new house. I ended up resolving this by just making an extra trip back to the old house anyway just to finish cleaning it up and to grab the cards since I needed to go one more time anyway. I called back to make sure they weren't going to cancel these cards, and of course there was no record I'd ever asked to cancel them, etc. Compare this to AMEX support. Native english speakers, they seem to have the power to actually just fix things for me, etc. So, while I still use my citi card just to keep the credit line open, my Amex card is my pinch hitter and cornerstone.

kube-system 5y ago
> In the meantime, these active cards are just sitting on my porch in a big envelope that says "CITI - URGENT - PLEASE STEAL ME" written all over it. I have more than a few credit cards, and I've never encountered a card issuer in the US that mails active cards. All of them require some sort of activation process before they can be used. That way, it doesn't matter if they're stolen.
tialaramex 5y ago
When dealing with banks that I know have lousy customer service over the phone I keep recordings. "Recordings may be taken for training and customer service purposes" says the message. Thanks, I'll take your advice. In the UK the tax-free savings account allowance is per tax year. I paid the money into a not-so-great bank offering excellent rates a few days before the deadline one year and called to create a savings account. Weeks later they've got no record of the savings account, and when I call they explain I'm too late now for "last year's" allowance. I point out that I made the transaction before the deadline and they explain that oops, sadly they don't have that call recorded, and so there's no evidence I actually authorised account creation back then. So I play back my recording, and what do you know, suddenly the bank has a new explanation for what went wrong and wants to pay me compensation for their mistake in not making the account. A better bank would have eaten the cost of this mistake up front of course, but I already knew this was a lousy bank, that's why they're offering by far the best rates. To attract customers despite the reputation.

kube-system 5y ago

> In the meantime, these active cards are just sitting on my porch in a big envelope that says "CITI - URGENT - PLEASE STEAL ME" written all over it. I have more than a few credit cards, and I've never encountered a card issuer in the US that mails active cards. All of them require some sort of activation process before they can be used. That way, it doesn't matter if they're stolen.

tialaramex 5y ago

When dealing with banks that I know have lousy customer service over the phone I keep recordings. "Recordings may be taken for training and customer service purposes" says the message. Thanks, I'll take your advice. In the UK the tax-free savings account allowance is per tax year. I paid the money into a not-so-great bank offering excellent rates a few days before the deadline one year and called to create a savings account. Weeks later they've got no record of the savings account, and when I call they explain I'm too late now for "last year's" allowance. I point out that I made the transaction before the deadline and they explain that oops, sadly they don't have that call recorded, and so there's no evidence I actually authorised account creation back then. So I play back my recording, and what do you know, suddenly the bank has a new explanation for what went wrong and wants to pay me compensation for their mistake in not making the account. A better bank would have eaten the cost of this mistake up front of course, but I already knew this was a lousy bank, that's why they're offering by far the best rates. To attract customers despite the reputation.