Citibank credit card

I have had a Citibank Credit Card since 2000, with card No. 4541-7800-1173-7298.

In April 2005, Citibank issued me a credit card (Mastercard), which is known as clear card, without asking my permission. After complaining, Citibank canceled this card. They informed me that they would issue one more card with additional limit of Rp 10,000,000. For this card, Citibank agreed to deduct 12,000 reward points from my earlier credit card.

During the month of May 2005, Citibank sent me a bill for Rp 300,000 as annual fee for the new card. Upon my complaint, they said that they would correct the mistake. They also asked me to call the reward point center again to check on this, which I did. The following month, they had revised the annual fee, but they charged late payment fees and interest charges.

Upon my complaint, Citibank informed that they would rectify the mistake. On July 27, I made purchases in a store in Kelapa Gading worth Rp 600,000. But, both my credit cards were declined and created unnecessary embarrassment. I had to cancel some of the purchases and buy with my available cash. On July 27, 2005, I complained about this to Citibank and they informed me that they had blocked both the cards. Citibank informed me that there was pending payment of Rp 23,000 on the new card and hence both the credit cards were blocked.

I told Citibank that this was not at all my mistake and hence Citibank do not have any right to block the cards and asked them to restore them immediately.

On July 30, I again faced the same problem in SOS Kuningan, with cards still being blocked. I called Citibank on Aug. 1, to talk to the manager of credit cards, but a Citibank officer, Ebito, told me that he could solve the problem. Again, I had to explain the whole problem to him. He informed me that he would rectify the problems.

As a supposedly professional world class bank, which is expected to give good service, Citibank has totally failed, even after their mistakes were pointed out. Now, I'd like to ask Citibank, how they are going to compensate me on the time I have spent, on my purchases, telephone, etc., and the embarrassment that Citibank created for me?

Citibank should have telephoned before blocking the credit cards, and explaining the problem clearly.

M.A. KOLHAPURI, Bogor, West Java