topic Re: Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI? in Credit Card Applications

Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI?

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 20:24:53 GMT

Is this standard for Citibank, and how should I handle the situation?

I requested a credit limit increase from Citibank last Wednesday. On Thursday, they hard pulled my Experian report. I expected them to then call me, because due to a very recent identity theft incident, I have a fraud alert on all of my credit reports asking credit issuers to call to verify my identity. No call received. On Saturday, I got a message from Citibank through the online message center that they need me to call them, because they were unable to reach me for identity verification. When I called, they informed me that I would need to consent to another credit pull. When I asked them about the Experian pull they already ran, they said that because they couldn't reach me to verify my identity at the time they made the pull, they couldn't use it and had to start from scratch. Putting aside that I never got a call from them, that still seems bogus; it would make sense if I had a freeze on my credit, but I didn't -- it was just a fraud alert. I told them I would consent to the second pull *if* they could put me on the line directly with the person doing the processing so that I could verify my identity live and therefore avoid a repeat of the same situation, but they said they couldn't do that because the credit pull is done by a back-office division that does not interface directly with customers or Citi's customer service agents. They even suggested that I should just delete the fraud alert (uh, no) so that they could do whatever they needed to do without having to consult with me.

What are my options at this point to avoid another hard pull, other than dropping the request? I've already got the one hard pull they made on my Experian report with nothing to show for it, and they can't even promise me that the same thing won't happen again if I authorize another pull. It just seems like my credit is potentially getting punished for Citi's poor handling of the situation.

Re: Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI?

Brian_Earl_Spilner — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 20:57:35 GMT

Drop Citi.

You can ask them to recode the HP as a SP since you believe the mistake was theirs, or try disputing it because they said it was unusable.

Personally, I dropped Citi about 10 years ago cause their practices were some of the worst I've ever dealt with.

Re: Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI?

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 21:12:36 GMT

@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:
Drop Citi.

You can ask them to recode the HP as a SP since you believe the mistake was theirs, or try disputing it because they said it was unusable.

Personally, I dropped Citi about 10 years ago cause their practices were some of the worst I've ever dealt with.

Agreed. Ask for a recode.

Re: Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI?

FinStar — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 21:37:52 GMT

@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:
Drop Citi.

You can ask them to recode the HP as a SP since you believe the mistake was theirs, or try disputing it because they said it was unusable.

Personally, I dropped Citi about 10 years ago cause their practices were some of the worst I've ever dealt with.

Unfortunately, these are their internal policies when it comes to ID verification if an alert is present on CR and the contact attempt is unsuccessful. We're definitely not privvy to the interactions between Citi and OP, but if the OP doesn't wish to pursue the CLI then that HP would be hard to dispute.

When a similar situation ocurred (unbeknownst to me that EQ has sent info to EX) a fraud alert was also on mine. But, they were able to reach me and the instance was resolved. It happened again with a new app (gotta love EQ), and I was provided with a contact number to reach them, so resolved there as well.

Worse case scenario, OP waits until their eligibile for a SP CLI, but if fraud alert is still present, then it may not be as fruitful.

Re: Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI?

Remedios — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 22:05:24 GMT

I've transposed last two ss# digits on my Citi app that resulted in "we'll get in touch with you", but I called them right away and app was finalized over the phone without a second pull.

I just had to answer a few questions, get a code sent back to me, read it and done.

I do not think a solid case for re-coding HP to SP can be made here.

While unfortunate that it happened, permissible purpose is there.

Also, a lot of times when lenders say they tried contacting us, they actually did, but maybe at an old phone number, home phone that has been disconnected, even work phone.

I still have Chase ask if I want text sent to my work phone number, even though it's not a default number and it never was.

Re: Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI?

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 23:41:55 GMT

I have a fraud alert on my reports to. I am not sure moving forward, but when I asked for a cli I immediately called Knowing it was there and they took care of everything right then. I have also been given nice auto cli increases from them. It may be profile likes and dislikes, but I wouldn't give up on them yet and demand to speak with a supervisor.

Re: Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI?

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 23:50:08 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I have a fraud alert on my reports to. I am not sure moving forward, but when I asked for a cli I immediately called Knowing it was there and they took care of everything right then. I have also been given nice auto cli increases from them. It may be profile likes and dislikes, but I wouldn't give up on them yet and demand to speak with a supervisor.

That's what I would have expected to be able to do, but the supervisor that I spoke with when I asked for one was adamant that they cannot communicate directly with the department that handles CLI requests aside from putting the requests into the queue through their system, and that my only option was to wait for them to call me when they got around to pulling my credit. I do suspect that there is a direct number to get in touch with the right people immediately, but Citi is seemingly refusing to acknowledge its existence and will only point me to the general customer service number printed on the back of the card.

Re: Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI?

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 23:55:43 GMT

I would have called back. Everyone has a fraud department and that is where they clear it. Sometimes you get an agent, no matter what card or bank it is, who just don't know as much as they think they do. If you don't get a satisfactory answer, always hang up and call back. If it hasn't been to long, I would now to and get to a supervisor to find an answer.

Re: Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI?

Brian_Earl_Spilner — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 00:24:19 GMT

Have you tried the numbers here?

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Card-Applications/Backdoor-Numbers/m-p/374744#M5540

Re: Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI?

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 03:31:05 GMT

True enough that department has always been unreachable at Citibank for me as well. Their credit report team.

However you can reach them by mail or fax. I would draft a letter explaining the circumstances and request that the first hard inquiry be recoded as a soft inquiry. You should only have one HP for the increase request.

I’m going through a recoding scenario with another institution now.

Re: Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI?

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 03:08:37 GMT

Pretty sure I'm going to call Citi retention tomorrow to tell them to just cancel my card.

I called Citi again in the afternoon on 3/3 to try to get someone who could get it through their heads what exactly my issue is. Talked to a supervisor right off the bat who was, again, clueless, but turfed me over to their Credit Line Management department on a hunch that maybe someone there could help me. The first person I spoke to actually grasped what the issue was, and assured me that as long as the initial credit pull was less than 30 days old, they could process my CLI using that pull. I asked her name for my notes, and all she would tell me was her first name and that she worked in the South Dakota office. She then connected me with a person who she said would finish out my request, but the moment she handed me off and dropped off the line, the person she connected to said, "In order to process your credit limit increase request, we need to request your credit report. Do you consent?" Of course, I immediately said no and that this was exactly what the woman in the South Dakota office had assured me did not need to be done, but we had no way to get her back on the line so I had to connect to the Line Management department again and wade through their call center. This time the person who answered was adamant that their department did not deal with these kinds of issues at all, notwithstanding that I literally had just spoken to another person in the same department who knew what was going on, and refused to do anything other than turf me back to the general credit card customer service line. The new customer service person I got seemed like maybe she understood the situation, and said that she was going to open a dispute that was supposed to require their CLI department to re-evaluate my request based on the existing credit pull. I was pretty skeptical that this was what would actually happen, because why the heck am I just hearing about it now, so I asked her several more times during the course of the call to confirm that was what would happen and she said it was, and that she would notate my file accordingly so that it was all reflected. So, after more than an hour bouncing around from person to person, I hung up mentally exhausted but at least hopeful that things were going in the right direction.

Fast forward to today, I got a letter in the mail dated 3/4 (the day after I called) saying that I "withdrew my request" for a credit limit increase. What. The. Heck. Filed a complaint with the CFPB (not holding my breath on that one but figured I'd create a trail with the agency), and tossed the card in the "do not use" drawer.

Re: Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI?

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 03:41:34 GMT

That’s terrible I’m very sorry to hear that.

Re: Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI?

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 18:31:11 GMT

Well, this whole ordeal eventually came to a happy-ish resolution. Shortly before I had planned to call Citibank to tell them to pound sand, I got a call from a rep in their executive office in South Dakota. They had received my complaint from the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (insert non-sarcastic "Thanks, Obama!") and looked into the situation. Turns out, the person who originally was supposed to contact me for the identity verification had, in fact, mis-dialed my phone number, and therefore Citi had never actually placed a call to my phone number. They also confirmed that, yes, they could re-process the CLI with no new hard pull since the previous report was less than 30 days old. Got the call from them this morning approving the CLI. They gave me $2k less than what I asked for, but it was still a fairly significant increase and at this point I'm just glad to have it all done and dealt with.

Re: Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI?

AllZero — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 18:41:21 GMT

Congratulations on your CLI!

Re: Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI?

seattletravels — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 19:23:39 GMT

Congrats on your CLI! Happy to hear it worked out in the end!

Re: Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI?

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 09:14:49 GMT

Congrats indeed!

Re: Citi wants to pull my credit multiple times for a CLI?

newfossil — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 09:33:09 GMT

Congratulations!