Cheats, Lies, and Letters from Citi

Like millions of others I received a letter from Citi in early December saying in zero-point type that my interest rate was going to leap sky-high unless I wrote or called Citi.

What would you guess the percentage to be of letter recipients who called? Or wrote? Two percent? Likely too high. How many even read the letters? Citi counts on recipients’ failure to act, I'll bet.

I called immediately and told Citi that “nope,” I was not amenable to its high rate and I wanted to cancel the card immediately.

Whoa, buster! Do you know what it takes to cancel a credit card? Try about 45 minutes, that’s all, after you talk with Yaseen, Tanish, Hammad, and Jamaal who urge you to terminate termination and if you terminate termination, Citi promised to reduce my interest rate. Imagine!

After wheedling the rate down to 3.99% (and I do believe I could have gotten Citi down further had I kept pushing which occurred to me ex post facto), we hung up.

Well, la de da, can you imagine the shock and surprise which grabbed me when I opened an envelope from Citi about 10 days later, and, hang on, the interest rate was not 3.99%, but 11.99%. Oh, me. Silly error!

I suppose Citi thought I might ignore this envelope, too.

I slashed and burned the telephone wires to reach the bleeping (thanks, Patrick) Citi again.

“Oh, no, no, no, Ms. Patricia, we did not mean for it to be 11.99%, but you are supposed to receive 3.99%,” said Aamir, one of Citi’s 10,234, 532 employees in India.

“Then why does it say 11.99%?” I asked.

“Oh, oh. We will make that change right away,” Aamir said.

I asked Aamir to tell me the date of my earlier marathon discussion with Citi.

“Oh, Ms. Patricia, it was December 6,” Aamir said, reading the record.

“Isn’t that odd that my letter from Citi which changed my interest rate to 11.99% rather than 3.99% is dated December 6?” I said.

It pays to read your mail. It pays to scream and yell. It pays to be able to walk away, Renee, from the liars and cheats that your U.S. government handsomely rewards for malfeasance.