topic Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon in Credit Cards

Citi Forward for Students Recon

CreditChampion — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 03:55:38 GMT

I have been denied a recon through the office of the president because of limited credit history. I will not take no for answer, and have left a message at Mod Cut house voicemail. Anyone have any suggestions? I have a 2 month old Wells Farco Cash Back college card.

Hello there.

Please don't post personal information in the public forums.

MarineVietVet, myFICO moderator

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 04:01:54 GMT

@CreditChampion wrote:
I have been denied a recon through the office of the president because of limited credit history. I will not take no for answer, and have left a message at Mod Cut house voicemail. Anyone have any suggestions? I have a 2 month old Wells Farco Cash Back college card.

Is the only thing on your report the 2 month old WF card? Even if you're applying for a student card, Citi isn't one of the easy ones to get in with.

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

CreditChampion — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 04:11:54 GMT

Incase anyone was wondering the mod cut was the President of Citi

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 04:11:40 GMT

My suggestion is to just swallow the hard pull from Citi and move on.

For future reference (by the way I don't suggest you apply for another 1-2 months) I recommend you try:

Chase or CapitalOne. I am definitely recommending CapitalOne's Platinum card. It is easier to get and if you can keep that one clean of late payments and etc for 6 months, you can get Chase then Discover.

Citi cards are kind of pointless in my opinion. Chase offers Freedom card which is MUCH better than Forward. The Discover More card is pretty good as well.

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

CreditChampion — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 04:14:37 GMT

Why do you think Chase Freedom is better? The fast food/dining on the Forward is very appealing. If this last ditch effort fails I will garden and apply for Chase and Amex in 4 months.

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

CreditWorld2013 — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:05:16 GMT

First let me say welcome to the Forums!

The reason most people like the Freedom more is because you get 1% - 5%(Quarterly Categories) cash back. With the Forward card you get ThankYou Points with little extras. However, it varries on the personal spending habits. For example, Citi classifies Amazon as a Bookstore for all purchases and the Forward gives you about 5 points per $1 spent on Books, Movies, etc. So in my case when I have to purchase textbooks via Amazon I will get more points. So it's a good card also the APR reduction, the fast food/dining bonuses and Citi's (usually generous) CLI's are just added benefits.

Now about the Recon...I would contact Citi's Executive Response Unit. Most likely they would transfer you to Citi's Vice Presidents office of Cards and that would be your best bet. You didn't post your file info such as inquiries, Age of accounts, etc so that would allow us to add more details and suggestions. Good Luck and keep us posted.

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

CreditChampion — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:10:34 GMT

Oh I have a direct line to the office of the president.(didn't know it was vice) and still same result. So that is why I'm trying to talk to the big man himself. The Wells Fargo is my first account. No derogs, and Citi was my 2nd inq on Equifax. Income blows 4800yr because I'm a student.

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

CreditWorld2013 — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:17:30 GMT

@CreditChampion wrote:
Oh I have a direct line to the office of the president.(didn't know it was vice) and still same result. So that is why I'm trying to talk to the big man himself. The Wells Fargo is my first account. No derogs, and Citi was my 2nd inq on Equifax. Income blows 4800yr because I'm a student.

Okay, your best bet is not to contact the President or Vice President himself. It would be best to speak to his assistant as they will want to resolve the problem before it getting to him. Also it depends on who answers the phone. Some people will say you should call back atleast 2-3 times as somone different might be in a better mood. So try again (Make sure the number you have is the same from the department I mentioned-google it) Now the problem can also be with the income. Given the fact that you have $4,800 as income they might see that as risky if you have a 800 CL on a Wells Fargo account (Assuming the Wells Fargo account is already reporting?) Remember if you have grants, etc you can include that into your income number (Don't inflate it too much for possible verification purposes)

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

CreditChampion — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:21:50 GMT

Is the office of the president different than the office of the vice president?

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

CreditWorld2013 — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:33:41 GMT

@CreditChampion wrote:
Is the office of the president different than the office of the vice president?

I'll PM you the number and you can see if that's the one you have. If I had to assume I would think they are 2 different offices.

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

CreditChampion — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:35:11 GMT

Ok thanks so much!

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

CreditWorld2013 — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:39:09 GMT

Sent! Let me know if it's the same or different from what you have.

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

CreditChampion — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:44:32 GMT

Oh that's Executive Response Unit....they transferred me to the office preaident(must be the same) and that department could not get me approved. So my last resort was leaving a message for the big man himself and he's suppose to call back. So hopefully I get a call sometime tomorrow.

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

CreditWorld2013 — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:47:50 GMT

Citi, like most banks, have some strange formulas for approvals and denials. Have you tried for the Discover Student, Capital One Journey or MTV?

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

CreditChampion — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:57:49 GMT

None of those? Is MTV easier than a forward?

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:58:50 GMT

I don't really think you'll have much success at this point. You already escalated it higher than most people would, and they denied you. It's not like the president of the company (or his/her assistants) really want to deal with any of us customers, and they're not going to go out of their way to help us. Citi's denied people with longer credit histories and higher income for the same card, so your chances of getting them to overturn their denial at this point are pretty slim.

Of course, you could get lucky, since Citi seems to base their decisions on absolute nonsense.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a card I'd like to eventually get too. But I'm not sure why you think the president of a big financial institution would really want to take the time to help you out...

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 06:00:48 GMT

@CreditChampion wrote:
None of those? Is MTV easier than a forward?

It's Capital One.. so it's going to be easier to get approved for than any Citi product.

Honestly, with as strict as Citi is with their requirements, I'm not sure why they even bother offering student cards.

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

CreditChampion — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 06:04:07 GMT

Does cap pull all bureaus for their student card?

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 06:23:50 GMT

@CreditChampion wrote:
Does cap pull all bureaus for their student card?

More than likely, yes. The only thing I've heard them not triple-pulling for is the Venture card.

Whlle inquiries suck, keep in mind that they'll stop hurting your score after 12 months. Which isn't that long if you're just trying to get credit established now so you're better off in the long run.

A lot of the prime banks (Citi, BofA, Discover) have their student cards, but I'm not really sure what kind of students they're geared towards. Citi and BofA will both deny you based on limited credit history and refuse to go anywhere with a recon. Discover.. well, I haven't been denied by then, so I have no idea.

Overall it seems to be harder to get a student card these days since the credit card laws made it so you can't apply using household income, they place more strict rules on applicants under 21, etc. I always hear stories about older friends who went to college in the 90's that they basically had cards thrown at them by all the banks, but it sure feels a lot harder to get a student card now.

Re: Citi Forward for Students Recon

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 06:35:04 GMT

@CreditChampion wrote:
I have been denied a recon through the office of the president because of limited credit history. I will not take no for answer, and have left a message at Mod Cut house voicemail. Anyone have any suggestions? I have a 2 month old Wells Farco Cash Back college card.
Hello there.

Please don't post personal information in the public forums.

MarineVietVet, myFICO moderator

Welcome to the forums!! While it's great that you want to start building your credit I would probably take it easy with the recon if I were you. 2 months is a very very short credit history, student or otherwise. As someone else mentioned, there are people with high FICOs and high incomes that get denied by Citi for fairly innocuous reasons. As a student who is new to credit it may not be in your best interest to rouse the Citi higher ups since they would probably view your calls as more of a nuisance than actually wanting to help if you were a high net worth client (sorry, just my honest opinion).

Citi generally looks for at least 12 months of credit history. I would suggest you garden for a bit. Allow your Wells Fargo account to mature and reapply then. You stand a really good chance of approval by doing that. I'm not sure any further recon would be beneficial to you at this moment. It may even be negative - you definitely don't want them flagging your file or anything that would ruin your chances for approval in the future.

Another poster mentioned the MTVu card. I believe this was discontinued recently and cardholders will be converted to Forward. As far as which is better (Freedom or Forward) they are so different in bonus categories that I actually have both cards to maximize rewards. 5 Thank You points = 3.3% cash back if you want to better compare these cards.