Citibank To Charge All Accounts That Drop Below $1,500

Spoke with a Citibank representative today and they said because I have direct deposit the fee won't be applied even if my account dips below $1,500 - we'll see if that actually happens though.

"rewarding customers for maintaining their balances with Citibank"

y'know, there're some people who opt for statements above; they're usually sickos at murder trials. they say stuff like, "i didn't kill them! i liberated them from the chains of this world! i should be honored!"

so i guess Citi's going to hit the hay too, huh? they seem incredibly desperate. the last thing any company wants to do is to punish the less valuable customers, which is exactly what they're doing. nice try though. may i have another?

When I used to deposit checks at a teller at WaMu, the full amount would usually clear and post to my account instantly. Now that my account has been bought by Chase, whenever I deposit a check it takes a matter of days to post. I'm talking about physically depositing checks, at the teller, in the morning, on a weekday. Still, despite the ugly online banking site and annoying meddling by representatives at their branches, seems like Chase is the one to bank with in NYC, for now.

Same here re: check deposits. & the bank statements they send every month are inaccurate as well--they don't list withdrawals & deposits on the correct dates if you have any activity on a weekend, so it looks on Monday like there's been a huge run on the account in a single day. not so great if you're trying to keep track of your spending, really.

...and the war on the working class continues.

Why do people with $500 in the bank think they are entitled to free checking? Completely free checking with no minimum balance is a newer concept; as late as the mid-90s, it was common to pay account maintenance fees if you didn't maintain a minimum balance. The banks that tried to gain market share by offering completely free checking (Commerce, WaMu) have been gobbled up by others because it's not a sustainable business model. It costs money for the banks to provide a checking account, why shouldn't they charge for it?

Duh, because if banks demand minimum deposits, the likelihood of overdrafts, especially with debit cards goes way down and banks live off those $35 penalties. They want you to screw up.

This is what we little working poor get as a

Thank you for bailing the Citibank group out with our tax dollars.

Screw em.

A fee will not hurt generation debt and x just po working

class folks and hospital workers.

I switched a few months ago from Citi to USAA. It's designed for military + families only, but it looks like their banking services eligibility is a little more lax:

https://www.usaa.com/inet/ent_utils/McStaticPages?key=why_choose_usaa_eligibility_main

There's not a single retail branch, but you can scan your checks at home and they refund $15 a month in other banks' ATM fees.

SO glad i picked WaMu instead back in the day. getting gradually less glad as now-Chase tries to persuade me to switch to "all paperless!!!!!!11!1!!1" so they can fuck up my account online. fortunately i actually read the two long-ass agreements they make you sign off to in order to actually indulge in the "luxury" of online banking

[seriously where is there to go after chase? TD is a hole. capitalone?]

BofA hasn;t charged low balance fees with direct deposit in years...way to join the club late, Citi.

(Shorts CITI's stock)

Morons.

That is insane! I guess I'll be canceling my Citi card.

citibank is the shit u can withdraw $10 from their ATMs! lol

Chase pulled this minimum-balance sh*t on me 20 years ago. I moved to Citi and they kept screwing up my account. I moved to a credit union 20 years ago and never looked back. Pffft!! :P

This reminds of the early 80's when Citi tried to impose a fees on customers who had the gall to attempt to use one of their live tellers. They were trying to get people to only use ATM's. Ironically, now hardly anyone at any bank uses a live teller, but in those days tellers were still the norm.

What's more, Citi had a retail branch in South Africa during apartheid, the only US bank to have one (other banks had offices for commercial banking, but none other were so callous as to actually maintain a branch).

This is not a bank that has ever had much of a conscience about anything.

Use a credit union to do your banking. These Big Banks like Chase, Citibank, will bleed you dry.

This will hammer in the final nail in their coffin. I have already begun the process of moving over 100,000 (including IRA and trust fund accounts) from Citibank. The only hesitation I had was caused by pure laziness but, after reading this, I am motivated. I hope everyone else does the same and puts a dent in their profits.

To make matters worse we are talking about the checking account. An account that will surely dip below that because it's meant for monthly expenses, not savings. I generally keep what I think I'll need. Now if we were talking about a savings account... would be about 1% less shitty. Guess I'll inquire elsewhere, not that I was happy with them in the first place.

heres a value tip - charles schwab bank. thank me later

I've heard good things about Charles Schwab as well. The only deterrent is that there's only a handful of them in the city.

there really are no branches...save for one in midtown. so you bank mostly through the mail, but in an electronic world, its not such a big thing. especially since all atm fees are refunded to you - so you can use any atm, anywhere. plus their support lines are answered by human beings.

I'm so much happier with them then when I was with Chase.

Several years ago, I had a checking/savings account with Citi, a credit card with them, and a safe deposit box. At various times, they screwed up on all of these and so I ended all business with them.

One of the things I hated on their credit card was that on the day the balance was due, they had to receive the money by 12 noon or it was considered late. If you went to a branch and paid cash on the date it was due at 12:01, you were charged a late fee.

Fees for this, fees for that. The only difference between Citi and a lousy airline is that at Citi, you pay extra for their baggage.

Credit Unions. if you ever work in civil service, join the credit union then quit the job if you want. You'll still be in the credit union.

I've been looking for a solid reason to leave Citi. Found it. Moving all of my purchases/transfers/deposits to Chase by Friday.

Thanks!!

Just be careful w/Chase. My wife used to have a business account there. She gave them a check for $900 and they lost it. It took them the better part of a week to find it again.

Needless to say, she no longer banks there.

Yeah - I switched from Chase in 1994 after repeated incidents of them overcrediting, then undercrediting my account (so that on a friday night I'd find I had negative $4000 in my account)... the final straw was when they lost a new book of checks and said I'd have to close my account. I did -- and moved over to Marine Midland, which was gobbled up by HSBC eventually. For what it's worth, I've never had any problems with HSBC.

HSBC can drop dead as far as I'm concerned. They sent me an offer for a pre-approved credit card with their "Orchard Bank" subsidiary. I figured why not? They proceeded to give me a paltry $1500 credit limit and when I didn't use it for a year (I was saving it for emergencies) , they closed the account. They told me I'd have to re-apply for a new card. I don't think so. My WaMu (now Chase) Visa has a $13k credit limit and I have three other platinum Visas with $5-7.5k limits, thanks to a 760 credit score, so I'm not hurting for credit. If HSBC wants to treat me like crap, I don't need them any more than they need me.

I don't have an HSBC credit card; I do my banking (checking, savings, etc) through them. I've never had a problem with them on that front.

Thanks, I'll watch out for any funny business!

Did she request some points/miles for the error? I bet they'd give some :)

Honestly, I don't think she cared about any of that. She was justifiably outraged that they lost the check. It turned out that it had been in the bottom of her "banker's" drawer the entire time. If memory serves me correctly, I think they canned the guy she was dealing with.

heh, aw man what a turd burglar that banker is.

Chase has one of the best miles programs for continental, so I was looking to switch anyhow.

And the Mets aren't doing any better. Must be the Citi curse.

Chase - crap web banking interface.

WaMu - excellent web banking interface until chase bought em'

HSBC - terrbile web banking interface, fees for low balance/no direct deposit

True, Chase's site isn't great, but it's still worlds better than Bank of America's. Absolutely horrible. They make it almost impossible to pay a credit card from an account at another bank. Their online help keeps you running around in circles, with one answer referring you to another, which in turn refers you to the first, neither actually giving a solution.

I keep my balance above 1500, but not all the time. This sucks ass.

How much more will we take ?

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/100/story/77791.html

these bankers are SCUM !

who needs a bank when you've got a mattress?

Pretty soon all other banks will follow and enact similar fees. They will be like the airlines in mimicking each others pricing.

Citi's strategy is to go back to being a bank for global jet-set rich b@stards only. It was only really in New York that it even tried to be a bank for regular people. It hears your pitiful cries, but in translation they turn into lovely, sweet, profit.

Huh? Citibank IS a NY bank!!! It started as First National City Bank of New York - it offered retail banking here because that was what they always did. They might be asshats, but don't try to re-write history.

bastards. How is a fee a reward? If they want to give a reward, then why don't they GIVE $7.50 to every customer whose account is over $1,500 each month?

"According to Citibank, it's not punishment but a reward"

And

War Is Peace

Freedom Is Slavery

Ignorance Is Strength

And a free checking account that costs you just pennies per day!

Arbeit Macht Frei

we've always been at war with Eastasia

I think Citi is terrible, however there is a certain logic to encouraging customers to keep money on deposit. It's how banks used to work.

There's a right way and a wrong way to reward customers. The right way is to give money for good behavior. The classic method for that is to pay interest. The more you keep in the bank, the more you earn. The wrong way is to take money away from your customers that isn't originally yours. That's not a reward. That's a punishment.

Back in the early 90s, Chemical Bank had a gimmick where if you went to a branch and had to stand in line for more than 5 minutes, they would give you $5. I loved that deal. For me, it was free money every week. Going to their branch in Rockefeller Center was like taking candy from a baby.

what's in your wallet?

I DO use CitiBank-- & gosh I hate them. I wonder if this will be the kick in the pants to move banks?

Dear banks: try offering service to recoup business-- trying to cheat your customers via fees is a dumb strategy.

How are people still acting like socialism is a bad idea?

well considering that citi is now run by the government would be a start. boy those government run banks really got it together.

I guess I will be closing my Citibank account!

Boy, am I glad I don't do business with Citibank. I'm guessing there will be a small run on their branches as people hear about this, withdraw their money and close their accounts. Way to increase their assets. Their excuse about this being a reward smacks of some software companies' "it's not a bug, it's a feature!"

same...really glad i don't have a citibank account. i'm trying to think about the times when my balance is over 1,500.00....uhh...

Maybe I should go to flight school. The lone building in LIC is a no-misser.

Datamined for sure.

Citi blows-- Lousy bank. Move to TD... not only do they have Regis in their ads, but it's a Canadian bank.

TD Bank is a shitty bank. They have screwed up my direct deposit and have shitty online banking. They had zero fees until they started charging a "cycle service fee" of $15 a month. Fuck them. I opened up a Chase account.

Oh great, now New Yorkers are experiencing that same pain that we Torontonians feel when we use TD.

i've had three friends in the last month who've had big (paycheck) deposits go missing from TD