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.
