I haven't used it for 1 year and they canceled my lifetime free credit card(opening during promotion) without any notice.
But credit card expired date was 12/20 on the card.
I called and asked them they said they can cancel anytime if we don't use it for a while and they can't offer the same one.
Is there any way to get it back??
I didn't read carefully. I thought it's ok to use another credit card for 1 year and come back to citi bank one.
Yeah, that's the one. I didn't use the card at all for 1 year. I didn't know there is the condition.
Banks cancelling inactive cards is normal. It costs them money to keep the account open while the cards isn't make any money in return.
How exactly does it cost a bank money to keep a account open, other than sending the statement and a new plastic card every 4 years or so.
Like i'm assuming a accountant with a monocle doesn't manually balance each account at the end of each month.
Isn't a account just a row in a database worth a few bytes of data at most?
I think its more for accounting purposes. Having a bunch of cards open without balances brings down the average
There's a cost per card per month - the card itself, the benefits - insurances, offers, etc.
My other bank credit cards are all fine only Citibank one I guess because they offered me for free that's why
It costs them money to keep the account open
Why are you making up stuff to make banks look better?
Banks top up ours and other 14.8m Australians super every year.
It costs the bank money to have credit cards not being used because they need to make an allowance for the potential use on the banks cash supply side. If you have 5000 cards with a limit of $10,000 each you need to have available access to $50,000,000 at call in case all 5000 people decide on a particular day to spend big and use their credit limit.
You can't just pluck money from thin air. In banking you need to know what your liabilities are and what access to cash you have.
"You can't just pluck money from thin air"
Of course they can pluck money from thin air, the banker simply uses his thumb to change the numbers in the account using a computer.
Yes becareful use the card now and then or it will get cancelled. End of story. Move on.
yeah, I know. I just got the credit card offer from another bank for 1 year so I was using the new credit card and then planning to go back to Citibank one but I can't
ChiMot, which way to move? ;-). Would like to have your opinion about which CR card is the best for daily expenses?
well if you spend alot then get amex they offer the best reward system i think. but sometimes you need to pay annual fees. well just know that banks are smarter than all of us. they wont give good cards with cheap or free fee. its logic.
Thanks ChiMot. 7 years in Straya, still need to learn a lot (especially English). I have Amex gold, no annual fee. But the downside is that it isn't as popular as Visa or Master, plus higher surcharge. And with Asian groceries, cash is preferable so CR cards are mainly for bill payments not for daily expenses.
Citibank is especially harsh in this area - and not just credit cards either. But bank accounts, like the Citiplus. In the past, they would write to you, and you could stop the cancellation (a number to call). Now, they inform you account is cancelled, and there is no way to stop it.
For those with Citiplus accounts mainly for travel purposes, make sure you get some activity on it once a while, if you want to maintain the account.
In contrast, other banks such as NAB, even when you hope they will come and clean up on $0 balance accounts, they just won't.
oh really?? if there is some money in the account they can still cancel it?
I should transfer in and out every 3-4 months then.
Yes. They will send a cheque for the amount that was in your account, after cancellation.
I use my card once every 6 months just to avoid them cancelling it. Priority pass is the only reason I kept the card.
yeah me too. now I lost Priority pass
I'm sure they sent u something to tell you
I've had many notices of "spend before this date or we'll cancel your card"
Maybe it's in your spam folder or old email address, or attached to one of the credit card statements u don't look at because you know its $0 from no spending
Citibank has a policy of cancelling credit cards or closing any bank account (including the Global Currency Account and any associated foreign currency accounts) if you haven't used your account for 6 months or more.
In practice, for bank accounts, they just made it inactive and all you have to do is to ring the bank to reactivate and make a transfer. For credit card, they used to send a snail mail alerting to use the card. Since everything goes online/email these days, it is easy to miss this.
Do not forget is my message. They are now more than eager to close this sort of accounts for obvious reason.
There is grace period where you can ask for reinstatement (it happened to me) but past that period (I don't know how long), you cannot request for reinstatement.
You should try with different operator.
At one point in my life AMEX offered me a fee free "gold" credit card "for life" - they then discontinued gold cards promoted gold members up to "platinum" then introduced a fee for platinum card holders ;-(
If they said "Fee Free for life", I believe there is a case of misleading conduct which can be argued upon.
However, the hassle of pursuing such case would not be worth it unless everyone complains. Citibank Fee Free For Life is one such credit card where the word Fee Free For Life was expressively stated. I think Westpac 55 Days is another card that has that guarantee.
Citibank Cancelled My LifeTime Free Credit Card without Any Notice. Anyone Has Same Issue??
Maybe I was lucky? Received a letter from Citibank notifying me to use my Coles credit card otherwise it will be closed. BPAYed $0.01 to the card and rang them. They saw me hadn't used the card for almost two years, offered some credit into the account. Thankfully I saw the posts here and didn't request to close the account.
What I do now is to set up scheduled payment of $0.01 between the accounts every 6 months.
Well, at least there were remedial step(s) you could take to keep account open. I just commented on your other post, they informed of impending closure, but no remedial actions was possible to keep it open.
Not a big deal - can open again. But just the hassles is all …
my Coles credit card
Just reminded me - Coles CC is handled by Citibank now …
Sounds odd. I got a letter stating they are intended to close my card if I don't use it then it clearly indicated that making any transaction within the next 30 days or so will keep it open. I use some $70 and it worked out fine.
What do the T&Cs you read thoroughly before signing up to say?