Citi....Really right now? *UPDATE*

[longtime_lurker]

So Citi told me my Citigold application had been declined when I called to see what the status was. Wouldn't tell me the denial reasons over the phone for "privacy purposes", even though he spent like 3 minutes verifying me. I was so shocked I even asked the guy, Citi declines me for a CHECKING account, right after an instant approval on the Prestige? He was like yeah, have a nice day.

...what? I do not understand checking account denials when there are no baddies on Chex. You trust me with 13,400 in unsecured lines, but not enough for a deposit account?

My ChexSystems is spotless (as are my CRs). I'm very interested to see the denial letter on this. Is there even a possible recon for a checking account? LOL

Anyone else been declined for a deposit account right after applying and being approved for a credit product?

UPDATE 5/31: Came back home from up north to Citi's denial letter. It stated that information in my EX report was used to decline my application. I reapplied for Citigold with an unlinked, new Citi online user ID, and pulled my free EX credit report to verify all info. Going to call Monday to see the status of my new application. I still think it was an error. If the 2nd application comes back a denial, I'm calling EO. 

[Anonymous]

Strange to say the least!  I was thinking about it.  Since seeing so many denials, not sure I want to.

[Creditaddict]

Id put your "Prestige" customer service to the test to resolve this or you will close the account! wth

[barbaralee]

I have never been turned down for a deposit account, I actually think I would be highly annoyed if it ever happened to me. I am curious why they would do such a thing. But, there is a similar thread with Chase in one of the other forums:

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Personal-Finance/Turned-down-by-Chase-for-checking-account/td-p/4024...

[selena]

I remember the Chase thread. Something similar happened to me too. I applied for checking online but nothing happened. Went into a branch and spoke with a rep, she could never find it so I applied in branch again with her and everything was fine. Also with Simple bank I was denied 4 times for my Chex report I could not figure out why. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly is considered "negative" on Chex when you don't owe money or things of that nature. 

[Anonymous]

Looks similar to this 6 year old thread!

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/General-Credit-Topics/Denied-Citi-Checking-Um-what/td-p/587984

Post 20 in that thread:

Mystery solved, kinda of..I think:

Third time's a charm - I got to a supervisor and they told me I was denied because I answered one of the security questions incorrectly. That's odd, I don't remember being asked any security questions

No idea if the same applies for you.

[longtime_lurker]

@Anonymous - that's a great idea, I will definitely follow up with them when I have the denial letter in hand.

I went ahead and requested a free Chex report to make sure nothing showed up that doesn't belong to me.

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@selena wrote:

I remember the Chase thread. Something similar happened to me too. I applied for checking online but nothing happened. Went into a branch and spoke with a rep, she could never find it so I applied in branch again with her and everything was fine. Also with Simple bank I was denied 4 times for my Chex report I could not figure out why. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly is considered "negative" on Chex when you don't owe money or things of that nature. 

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Yeah I just read that thread, very similar situation! Regarding your experience, it sounded like in my case Roberto found my app easily and flat out told me it was denied. The nearest Citi branch is about 4 hours away in Chicago, so I'll definitely be working Prestige's CS/EO if I have to to find out exactly why and to get it opened. I am certainly glad it worked out for you...except for Simple bank. The only "bad" thing I could think of is # of accounts...but I have 3 at the moment, Discover/CS/MSUFCU. Plus CS double pulled my EQ - I wonder if they even ran Chex lol. Guess I'll find out in 5 business days

[Anonymous]

I applied for the Citigold account maybe bwteen 6-8 times before I was approved. The online system kept showing me that I was pending, and then eventually I would be denied. I actually spoke with someone in the executive office about it; she told me that my identity couldn't be verified so I was denied. She wouldn't budge in trying to overturn the decision to approve me. I thought what the heck and decided to apply a couple more times in one night. The second time I did it that night I actually created a new username and password, which would be apart from my Prestige account. I went through the whole process and got approved online. Super weird, but whatever. 

[rlx01]

Open in branch.

The online account opening is very buggy.

[longtime_lurker]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Looks similar to this 6 year old thread!

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/General-Credit-Topics/Denied-Citi-Checking-Um-what/td-p/587984

Post 20 in that thread:

Mystery solved, kinda of..I think:

Third time's a charm - I got to a supervisor and they told me I was denied because I answered one of the security questions incorrectly. That's odd, I don't remember being asked any security questions

No idea if the same applies for you.

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Interesting, I just read that whole thread. In summary

1) Denial letter stated EQ (OP had clean EQ)

2) After several calls, they were told Chex (Op had clean Chex)

3)After several more calls, got supervisor who told them they answered a security question incorrectly, which doesn't make sense as OP put it, because denial letter should have said "unable to verify identity"

Thinking back to my personal application, one of my security questions was odd because it asked about my mother, but I definitely answered that correctly, and I remember google mapping her address to verify the information before I submitted.