The ready credit facility of Citibank

Citibank offers a ready credit facility to its customers who hold salary accounts with them.I was given this facility though I had not requested for it.

I have had a bad expereiece in anything called ‘Credit’..credit cards especially.Not that I am a big shopping maniac..I was pretty disciplined in the way I used the cards..but the banks were not..Almost every month I would get wrong statements adn I had to spend a lot of time and energy getting them corrected.I was fed up with this and so stopped using credit cards completely.

Hence,with that background,I wanted to cancel the Ready Credit facility provided to me by Citibank.

When I called their Customer care,they first tried to convince me how useful it was.I did not budge.I just wanted to get ti cancelled.I first made an attempt to cancel this facility in April2006.

The lady (Customer care) told me that i had to have a TPIN(another password to remember) if I wanted to cancel this facility.Now this was very ridiculous.I could do all other transactions and ask for anything related to my account without a TPIN,but cud not cancel the Ready credit facility without one.

I just did not want to remember yet another PIN.So even though CITIBANK sent one,I just ignored it and decided that I wud be very careful while using CITIBANK facilities,so that I dont accidently make use of this credit system which is very draconian(24% interest rate).

Accidently,my account went into negative balance(I transferred money twice to my IDBI account over the CITIBANK Net banking).Fortunately,I realised the same day that I was into negative balance and when I checked up with the customer care,I was told that if I did not get into positive balance by 12 midnight,i wud be charged a penalty of 24%.

I was stunned.I somehow got my account into positve balance(courtesy friends who had access to the NET at 10 pm).

I tried to cancel the facility the very same day..but CITIBANK wud just not let me cancel it.

Obviously it seems its a great earner for them.CITIBANK must be making a lot of money from customers who knowingly or otherwise get into negative balance(REady creait facility).

I made another attempt to cancel the facility..but with no luck.

Finally I have decided to close my account with CITIBANK.It just isnt working out.

Out of all the banks that I have banked with I think I have had the worst experience with CITIBANk.