Alliant CU saved my bacon this week

[Billharrell]

I recently opened a citi Costco card, my first citibank account. I set up my payment info online connected to my Alliant checking. Once I had a small balance I paid in full to make sure it worked okay. After a few days, the payment posted as normal.

Today I received a letter from Alliant stating that I had set up an ACH payment with incorrect account information (wrong acct #). Alliant took the time to find my account and honored the payment anyway. They let me know in the letter that I needed to correct the I formation with citi before my next payment.

I don't need to tell you guys what can happen when a CC payment is returned. Financial review, closed accounts, etc, the boards here are filled with horror stories. Alliant saved my bacon and I was sure to send them an email letting them know how much I appreciated their extra effort!

[Adkins]

That's awesome of them! 👍👍

[CreditInspired]

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@Billharrell wrote:
I recently opened a citi Costco card, my first citibank account. I set up my payment info online connected to my Alliant checking. Once I had a small balance I paid in full to make sure it worked okay. After a few days, the payment posted as normal.

Today I received a letter from Alliant stating that I had set up an ACH payment with incorrect account information (wrong acct #). Alliant took the time to find my account and honored the payment anyway. They let me know in the letter that I needed to correct the I formation with citi before my next payment.

I don't need to tell you guys what can happen when a CC payment is returned. Financial review, closed accounts, etc, the boards here are filled with horror stories. Alliant saved my bacon and I was sure to send them an email letting them know how much I appreciated their extra effort!

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Awesome sauce. That really is wonderful news. I wonder exactly what it was they corrected about the Citi account. Did they say?  

[Billharrell]

I entered the wrong account number.

[Anonymous]

Good to know that!
Some Cc issuers do not allow me to copy and paste my account number. IMO, that is a stupids thing since copy and paste is more accurate than typing.

[5KRunner]

Kudos to Alliant for their excellent customer service! Every financial institution should follow their lead!

[Anonymous]

Am I the only one who doesn’t think this is a good thing? While it’s great that Alliant saved you, there is a security aspect of this that makes me not trust them for doing it. I would much rather have a financial institution that outright rejects something with the wrong account number rather than have one that is willing to draw off an account number they concluded was my account. The best middle ground would have been a call to make sure that was my payment. There is no doubt this was going above and beyond from a customer service standpoint but it could have been a huge mess if they drew off of the wrong account. 

[CreditInspired]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Am I the only one who doesn’t think this is a good thing? While it’s great that Alliant saved you, there is a security aspect of this that makes me not trust them for doing it. I would much rather have a financial institution that outright rejects something with the wrong account number rather than have one that is willing to draw off an account number they concluded was my account. The best middle ground would have been a call to make sure that was my payment. There is no doubt this was going above and beyond from a customer service standpoint but it could have been a huge mess if they drew off of the wrong account. 

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I was thinking the same thing @saeren when OP responded “the wrong account number.” How did Alliant know the “correct” account number. I’m still not following but maybe it’s something we’re missing. IDK.

[zerofire]

Most banks can talk to one another. The problem is that some just choose to not. The second thing is that it might have been the last digit that was messed up for the CC and in that case that digit is a check digit. Allient as a bank knows the verification formula of a card and can verify quite easily. If the damage was in the first 6 digits then that is part of the BIN of the card and when you say send to Citi there are only so many BIN's that Citi has for their cards. Overall credit card accounts are very hard to mess up since most of the account number can be checksumed.

[CreditInspired]

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@zerofire wrote:

Most banks can talk to one another. The problem is that some just choose to not. The second thing is that it might have been the last digit that was messed up for the CC and in that case that digit is a check digit. Allient as a bank knows the verification formula of a card and can verify quite easily. If the damage was in the first 6 digits then that is part of the BIN of the card and when you say send to Citi there are only so many BIN's that Citi has for their cards. Overall credit card accounts are very hard to mess up since most of the account number can be checksumed.

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Thanks @zerofire for the explanation. Now, I understand how it could have been corrected.