Dear all,
My advice is stay well clear of citibank.I googled citibank before i did put my saving with them and nothing much came up about them so hopefully someone is reading this that can benefit and we'll make the world a better place.
first off all i am just a working family man.
i wish i could go back in time to a year ago, i would keep walking past the citibank building and carry on living my life with no problems....
back in early 2008 had all my hard earned savings (HARD EARNED) in a citibank savings account, It was all i had.
A few weeks into having the funds in there I get a phone call from my account manager. He expressed a personal interest in me and asked me would i be interested in making some extra money. i told him 'no'
over the coming weeks i got more phone calls from him .
He said he could give me a 150k USD value loan . i told him 'no'
Citibank kept calling me, they assured me it was a great investment.
He told me we could do a recorded verbal contract over the phone for the loan like the Forex trading guys do for live rates. I told him 'no'.
Over the weeks i got more calls and they kept giving me scenarios demonstrating how i could make money with the loan.
i told them not to do anything without my final consent.
1 week later i get a letter informing me i got $150000USD deposited in my account :0(
I called citibank up straight away. I tried getting hold of that account manager but he was always too busy to take my call. Finally I got hold of some random accounts person who told me for citibank to take the money back i will have to pay interest on it plus a penalty fee of $3500.U.S and they advised against it.
The loan money sat there for a couple of weeks while i tried to get hold of my accounts manager. I was so angry at them. i never consented to this loan. And anyway it certainly was not japanese yen. And where they got 150000 U.S. from i have no idea. looking back they must have thought how much can we screw out of this guy...
A couple of weeks after the loan i get a call from citibank- advised me everything was going well and he advised i invest the $150k USD in a citibank investment product called a "premium account"
i was really worried having this big loan sat there, i agreed. after all they are a bonofide company...? i gave consent to the verbal contract over the phone and we entered into the premium account.(this time i did actually give my consent -in the thought of damage control at this stage hoping things would get better)
4 weeks later i get another phone call from citibank. Same guy. Bobby koh. He tells me i did well with this premium account, i covered the cost of my loan and made some money on the premium account. He recommended i do another one immediatly to cover the costs on this loan. Of course I agreed. We did the verbal contract on the phone. This pattern went on for months and months. every conversation we had citibank told me i was making money and the investment strategy was effective.
I kept reading my bank statements each month and although they were confusing and hard to read, they appeared to be making money in interest each month on the premium account. I trusted citibanks good reputation and kept in good faith that they were looking after my best interests.
Anyway.after a while i started getting a bad feeling so i sat down for a whole day and went through all the statements and they were very deceptive and confusing to read. On one side they showed a profit from the investment returns. It turns out i was loosing a steady 5 grand a month across the board on my savings account :0( I lost 30grand over 6 months.
This was coming out of my savings end of the account which was seperate to the loan and investment
I called citibank up, i got hold of my accounts manager and
I terminated the loan with them
to anyone considering opening an account ,- stay well clear and get on with your life -it will be much better if citibank are not in it.