Hey all, I have 2 dead Citi accounts I'm paying down slowly. The first is from the late 90s, early 2000s. Citi changed its T&C and I declined. Its sitting at like 1.9% permanently. I've been paying minimums ever since. There's only about 600, 700.00 left. Paid as agreed, never late.
The second, I ran into trouble during the downturn. They froze my account, closed it, and although I've been paying on it ever since, it's no longer found on my credit report. Citi, instead of the collection agency, is recently sending me Bills again. 0%, about 2300 left to pay, give/take. Paid as agreed, going on 3 years or so.
I would like to call Citi, consolidate these under one account, offer to begin paying them interest again, in exchange for a new open account. Preferably, I'd love to do this under a soft pull. (I'm in the garden, after all!) Anyone ever done anything like this or have experience or knowledge on how they may react? Looking ahead, assuming that there's no way they'd do this, how long after payoff do people generally need to wait to be back in Citi's good graces? Thanks very much.
I'm not sure is this would work but I highly doubt that they'll approve you for a new account with a SP. If I'd guess, they'll probably HP you twice 
Thanks to you both! For the record, these are so old that they don't even show up on my CR. In the event of the former, it's been closed well over a decade-- maybe almost 2. Re the latter, I was first-late in 2009 or 10. I was sad to see them go, but...
... and they're not burned. I'm still paying both. Wonder if my score would see a jump if I paid it off. I'll see eventually, I guess.
Thanks for any info on timing from anyone-- I'd love to hit them for that 21 month BT offer.
-- PS-- Even though it was with an Agency, it was never a full charge off (At least according to both Citi and the Agency) They called it a "pre charge off." Not sure how/if that matters in their determination.
Interesting. I doubt this is possible but no harm in calling and finding out your options!
I agree that I don't think anything would be fruitful until the remaining balances have been paid, and don't foresee them reopening any accounts, especially if they have been closed for that long. As for your scoring question, if they are no longer appearing on your reports, they are not currently factoring into your scores now and would make no difference once paid unless for some reason they were updated and began reporting again (unlikely but not impossible), in which case you may see a bump due to increased average account age (and oldest account, if applicable). I have a few random accounts that have been closed for longer than 10 years that are still reporting on one CRA or another due to the "last updated" column, so I actually find it interesting that these accounts did fall off of your reports while actively paying on them.
The good news is that you've basically been slowly paying down "closed by lender" accounts and these never became serious derogs, so hopefully once settled for good won't have any negative impact on future Citi applications.
I had two cards with Citi in very similar circumstances.
One with a Forever 1.99% BT offer, the other with a standard fixed rate of 7.9%. Each had terms changes proposed by Citi, each I declined the changes to freeze those rates. This was in the '09 or '10 timeframe and I needed the low rate more than an open card. Each card likely got balance chased for a time, however the 7.9% card still had a $20k limit until I paid it completely a few years ago.
No late payment on these or any other cards. These were my only two Citi cards.
In 2012 I got a mailer for a Diamond Preferred. Mailed it in and got a $1k limit. Used that to build up more active history while still making payments on the two closed cards.
In 2015 I applied for the AAdvantage Platinum card, got a decent limit. Then got a second a few months later.
I would think you should just apply for a Citi card. I agree you cannot combine these accounts, and really for the balances involved I'm not sure why you would want to. Just app a card, take the HP, and see what happens.
GL
Thank you all. I appreciate your experience and input!!! In my world, I think the mortgage currently comes first... esp with this week's cuts. I will address this and report, but it'll likely be quite a while. Gardening.