Do you have a Citibank credit card?

[solarbird]

If you have a Citibank credit card, I want to know whether any of you are getting letters like this, which started showing up in mailboxes this week in various parts of the US. I am interested both in "yes, I have received this letter," and, "no, I have not received this letter," as well as permutations. "I got this letter but with a different interest rate" would be very interesting; "I got a letter a lot like this from another bank" would also be interesting, particularly if your credit score is good.

You may comment anonymously here - I'm going to be turning anonymous comments back on briefly for this purpose right after I post this - or, if you're not comfortable with that, please contact me through Livejournal inbox mail, or my email address.

I am not interested in debit card letters, not even Visa Debit. Only credit card.

Yeah, I know, this looks scammy. PLEASE DO NOT GIVE ME ANY INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR CREDIT CARD OTHER THAN WHETHER YOU HAVE RECEIVED THIS LETTER, AND THE NAME OF THE BANK SENDING IT. I DO NOT WANT YOUR CARD NUMBER, TAX ID, EXPIRATION DATE, OR EVEN YOUR NAME. I DO NOT WANT ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION. DO NOT SEND SUCH THINGS TO ME. All I want to know about is whether or not you're a Citibank (or Infibank) customer and have or have not received this letter.

Basically, I'm trying to see whether the reports I'm hearing on financial boards about this are correct. Citi appears to be sending this out to all - or at least large subset of - cardholders, regardless of credit history. Infibank may be as well. Other banks are sending out letters, but they aren't this universal. This manoeuvre will cost Citi a lot of credit customers, and they seem okay with that, which is interesting.

eta: Anonymous comments will be screened. Tell me IN THE COMMENT if you don't want them unscreened.

Comments

[archanglrobriel.livejournal.com]

Yep, I got one awhile back and I posted about it at the time. I'm still not sure what the heck I'm gonna -do- about it, since this puts us between the rock and the hard place...but for whatever it's worth... I got one.

[solarbird]

29.99% APR now?

[archanglrobriel.livejournal.com]

Ayep. And when we called them we were told that there was no way to argue it down or negotiate it away either. The person we talked to on the phone told us "well if you don't like it, you can always pay it off or transfer balances to another card." Shhhyah, right.
Sooo now we're going to a couple of those credit card repayment services to investigate our options, because at least they'll offer us a numbing lube first...

[kalinobeche.livejournal.com]

[Unknown site tag] referred me to you. I too got one of these letters this week. My APR would have gone to 29.99% if I hadn't rejected the terms. I'm letting the card expire and will continue to pay it off. Let me know if you need more info.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

Have not.

[solarbird]

You have a Citi credit card and have not received this letter, or you don't have a Citi credit card at all?

[kodi]

I have two Citibank cards, and I have not received this letter. In March or so, I received a similar letter, but it was 12.99% to 16.99% on one card, the only card I had at that time. A month later, I received an offer to sign up for a similar Citibank card on a different credit network with a 12.99% rate, and accepted. I really hope I don't get such a letter, since I carry a substantial balance on that card; 16.99% was a bad enough hit.

[solarbird]

As far as I know, these letters are still rolling out, so if you get one, please update?

[solarbird]

Thanks, appreciated. At least a couple of people have not yet received these letters.

[dogemperor.livejournal.com]

One thing you may want to note as well:

You may want to specify if you want info re Citibank-branded Mastercard and Visa cards *versus* Citibank-managed "store only" cards (i.e. cards that are not technically Mastercard or Visa and are usable only at a specific merchant or chain; you DO still see these with some chains, especially electronics stores and gas companies).

I note this as often the terms between "store only" cards and "store affinity cards" (aka store-branded Mastercard or Visa cards that offer points for shopping at a specific retailer or chain but are usable at other stores) DO differ--and there are some cases where retailers do issue both.

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

I have a citibank card, but have not yet gotten a screw-you letter.

I haven't used the card actively in years, though, and don't have a balance on it. (Or any cards, yay!)

[solarbird]

Added for collection purposes, from two anonymous sources, data posted with explicit permission:

1. Non-US citizen with US Citibank credit card, both rates raised to 16.99% from 12.99%. Note: recipient has doctorate and Citi knows about it. Received letter 23 October at a US address.

2. US citizen with US Citibank credit card, 29.99%, standard letter, received 23 October at a US address.

1. and 2. have linked financial affairs and the same surname. Both letters were received at the same address.

[solarbird]

Store cards - even if managed by the same bank as the regular cards - are different, for lots of reasons. Thanks for the call-out on that, though; it's interesting.

[solarbird]

Be on the lookout for a non-usage fee or cancellation. A lot of people with extended zero balances are getting those from a lot of banks.

A lot of users with zero month-to-month balances but active use on the cards - they pay off in full each month - are getting these letters, so it's interesting that no usage so far means no letter. At least, not yet. Thanks.

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

I got a similar letter from CapitalOne a while ago. I don't have a Citibank card, and I don't know my credit rating offhand, but it's pretty good.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

Sorry; have a Citi card and have not received such a letter.

[solarbird]

May I ask the before-and-after APRs?

[solarbird]

Thanks. If you get one, let me know. I know for a fact they're still going through the mail system now.

[solarbird]

This is not financial advice, but were I in a similar position, I'd join a credit union if possible. Good luck.

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

Yep, we got one. Luckily we don't have a balance on ANY Credit card. We just use them for convenience (so we don't write checks at the store, online, etc). I make sure all my Business Accounts do like wise.
It should be noted that not only do we pay ON TIME, IN Full each month (save when bill payer (that's me) gets sick or has her computer crap out on her), we both have Excellent (above 750) credit scores.
Currently, they give us money back, so we'll keep them for now.
We are waiting for the Annual Fee ax to fall. Then we'll determine who we are going to keep and who we plan to ax. If you charge us for keeping your card, then we are NOT keeping you. Real simple. There are still enough card providers out there that we can get what we want (see excellent credit score). And yes, I know how lucky we are on that.
Our Credit Union just axed BofA (was First USA) as their CC service provider. So we are waiting for their new card to come out, then I'm switching to that one and dropping the now non-CU card.
Fun Fun Fun in the Credit World. Not.

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

I'll see if I can find the letter -- I had to clean off my desk as I bought a new computer and everything except the unpaid bills is in a box :D I've got to go through all that stuff this weekend.

IIRC it was something like 17.9% to 29.9%

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Yup, I got a letter like this, and our credit's solid. The Citi card just got shuffled to the bottom of our deck.

[tfabris.livejournal.com]

I got a rate increase from citibank several months ago. It wasn't as high as 30 percent, but it was significant enough to make me shop around. In the end I transferred my balance to a new Wells Fargo card with a much saner interest rate.

My card with Citi is still open, but with a zero balance. This news makes me want to close it altogether.

(ok to post publicly)

[torquemada.livejournal.com]

I was a Citibank customer and got such a letter. I opted out.

ETA: I have credit on the high end of 'good', ten year cardholder with Citi through a boutique brand (AT&T), got the letter about two months ago. I had a high balance (the card was my 'get out of unemployment free' card twice) but had always made (over)payments on time.

[solarbird]

(ok to post publicly)
Good, 'cause you didn't post it anonymously so it wasn't screened! (I'd have screened it when I saw it if you'd said you'd wanted it private, of course.)

Let me know if you get one of those letters. So far, holders of unused cards in my little set of responses aren't getting letters. Holders of cards used-but-paid-off-every-month cards generally, by contrast, have been. You're the second person to note getting the 12.99% to 16.99% letter (or variant) several months ago, though.