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Sorry to hear that Citi closed your account OP.
Just out of curiousity though, for those of you using AutoPay, when your balance is $0.00, what amount are they trying to process w/ AutoPay? I don't have anything set to AutoPay b/c there is nothing going on in the sports world right now, and gyms are not open. All I do is on the myFico forum (very addicting) to learn as much as I can in the credit world, and check my Navy account hundred times a day.
i have mine set to the Minimum Payment only
i stay on top of my accounts for sure - i was convinced by a story on this forum to turn on AutoPay to cover me in case of an incident
someone had an Emerg and had to go to the hospital for 2 weeks - no auto pay setup - they had late payments on half of their accounts
so 3 lessons here
1. Setup AutoPay on all accounts - at the Minimum payment only - you can manage the rest of the payment most of the time
2. have enough in the account to cover a $50 payment, so there is no returned payment issue - this can be your Emerg fund account, but i wouldnt run an account down to absolute zero without an overdraft option
3. setup overdraft on your primary payment account
Sorry to hear that. Closing the card sounds a bit extreme, unless they were on the verge of closing it anyway. Which it doesn't sound like should have been the case.
I posted about this before, but somewhat related, I have a returned payment with Citi and one with Amex for the same reason, because I tried to use a new savings account to make a payment, and it won't do ACH. The payment wasn't even due, I was making a mid-statement payment in both cases. So even though there was no funding issue and even though my payment ended up being early, as always, I probably still have black marks in Citi and Amex internal scoring because of this. Oh well ...
Curious what are they trying to draft on auto pay from the two examples here? Especially the $5 transaction one.. You didnt have $5 in the account that tried to auto pay from? That is interesting if so and also just strange for any bank account imho.
Regarding OP.. I feel sorry for you if indeed balance was $0 and they tried to draft whatever balance. Was your balance indeed $0 or did you have charges on it, but just had your last months charges paid off?
@Anonymous wrote:So, I'm a little perplexed and pissed. I have an Auto Pay on all cards in case I forget to pay it off one month somehow. On May 15th, I paid the balance on CITI Secured Diamond card. This brought my balance to $0.
Then, they tried my auto payment, which kicked back for insufficient funds, because I had not transferred more over from savings yet, but with a Zero balance, it didn't cross my mind.
I paid the balance on full yesterday as well, $100.51.
I went to use it today, and Declined.I logged in and it's Closed. I called and they said it was closed because of the returned payment.
mice had this account for 14 months and pay it off monthly.
Asked for supervisor, with no luck.Does anyone have an email address at Citi that I can contact that may help? I've improved my credit score over 120 points in the past year, and now this! Ugh!!
I'm sorry this happened to you. Every lender seems to have their own policy on auto-payments -- some will still try to pull their automatic payment on the due date, even if the account has a zero balance. They use the minimum due from the last statement. On a lot of these you have to log in and go through the steps to "skip next autopayment.:" It can be confusing.
My experience with Citi's secured card was also not pleasant. Within about 3 years of my BK 7, I already had around 300K in open revolving credit lines with okay FICO scores and most of my limits were 10K or 20K or 50K.
I first applied for the Citibank secured card somewhere around 2 years post discharge, good scores, lots of good credit cards, and they denied me for a secured card. I was flabbergasted. They underwrite their secured cards like unsecured cards and they didn't like something about my report. (Probably too much new credit with high available limits)
But I really wanted to develop a track record with Citibank, so a year later I again applied for a $1000 secured card with them. This time it was approved. I used it for little stuff and I liked to use it for small online purchases so if somebody stole my account number, they couldn't run up more than 1K in charges rather than 50K had I used a different card.
Finally that approved secured card hit the 18 month point where it was supposed to unsecure, but I decided all my credit lines were now 10K - 50K and I did not want a sorry little 1K card reporting from anybody, so I called them and just said "close it." They said, "But it's due to graduate!" I said I just didn't need it.
Well this is the kicker. A few days later I got a letter from Citibank (sent before I closed the secured card) that said they were not going to graduate my card at the current 18 month mark, but wanted an additional year as a secured card. Mind you I have huge unsecured limits now. I just laughed.
Citibank was one of the worst banks during the bank bailout crisis. They were in very bad shape. I deeply resented the fact that my tax dollars bailed them out and they were treating me this conservatively.
The only reason I wanted in with Citi is because I have a ton of American Airlines miles (though I have never flown on them) and I want to eventually get a few of their AA mileage cards. They have several with large sign-up bonuses.
Also, I called and spoke to them a couple of times about when I could apply for the unsecured American Airlines cards and they told me a MINIMUM of 7 years after BK filing, but usually 10 years.
I wouldn't mess with them until you have very good scores and there is a great signup bonus.
My experience left a bad taste in my mouth.
The advice about attaching a line of credit to your checking account to avoid a returned payment is a really good idea. Most banks will cover your OD if you have a decent history with them. Not sure why they returned your payment and didn't just pay it and charge you an OD fee.
Again, sorry for your troubles, but Citibank is just not worth the hassle unless you are a gold-plated borrower and just know they are as tough or tougher with secured cards in their underwriting.
My spouse has all perfect 850 FICO scores (thanks to my account management) and they treat him like gold. Even though they say they won't combine credit cards, they essentially did that for him when I called and said I was him. He has 50K in limits with them now and as a self-employed attorney he applied for and got two or three American Airlines Citibank cards (he already had Barclay's Aviator). We have never flown on American Airlines and he has 375,000 miles (all through credit card bonuses) and I have 195K miles all through bonuses.
Sorry for the long reply. The Cliff's Notes version is just forget about Citibank for now.
But do remember, any returned payments with any credit card company is going to get you shut down. It is a huge deal to them. Even if you were making multiple paymnts a month to keep your balance down, and even though no payment was due, if one of these extra payments results in a returned payment, you're done with them.
Best to you.
Somewhat moot for the OP, but to mention for others reading now or in the future, Citi secured is the first card I got when I started my rebuild last year. As my signature lists out, I had scores in the 500s and no active accounts at the time. I had just been denied for Discover secured. So, I do not think Citi has the same underwriting for the secured card as for their unsecured cards, nor do I think the Citi secured card is generally difficult to get. I think they just didn't like something about the prior poster's profile, maybe the BK.
That said, I would rate these secured cards higher: Discover, Navy Federal, TD Bank, BoA student. Three reasons. 1) Citi advertises that it can unsecure in 18 months, but anecdotes are all over the place, from 11 months to 30 months. The other options I listed can mostly unsecure after 7 statements. 2) The Citi card has no rewards. The other options I listed all have rewards. 3) It is not possible to increase your CL/deposit with Citi. It is with most if not all of the other cards I listed.
The main positive is simply that it's Citi. It unsecures to a Diamond Preferred, which can be product-changed to some good cards, including the Double Cash.