Citibank India's customer service has never been that great all these years but at least one could always rely on their Phonebanking for support and prompt actions. But my interaction with their Phonebanking Officer Mr. Naresh changed that impression for me as well because I feel that he lacked the patience, diplomacy, sensitivity and initiative that a person in his position must possess to deal with queries and complaints from customers. Instead of trying to understand my concern and demonstrate any effort or sensitivity in assuring me that my complaint would be considered, he refused to even give me a reference number for the issue I wanted to raise. He was not even ready to treat my concern as a feedback for future reference. Instead he was quite hostile and expressed lack of belief in what I brought to his attention regarding my account. In the past, many including I have been dissatisfied with their customer service in various branches but never did I expect such attitude from their Phonebanking officer.
As a consumer or customer, we have a right to raise our concerns and complaints regarding Citibank's services, Internet banking and other products. We have the Right to be Heard irrespective of how irrelevant our problems may appear to them. But despite my endless efforts to make him understand my concern at length, he expressed lack of belief just because according to him such a thing has never ever happened in his Citibank account or any of his other accounts. He came across as very arrogant,aggressive, difficult and hostile in his approach.
I had already raised another serious complaint with them a few hours before regarding a cheque. I had clearly issued a cheque of Rs.300 but Rs.3000 had been deducted from my account. I had discussed the same with the person the cheque was issued to and was calling Phonebanking to give a feedback on that issue and remind them to treat this matter as priority as promised a few hours back by the previous Citibank Phonebanking staff. And that is when I thought about informing him about an unusual activity regarding my deposits where the money invested had been transferred back to my account much before the date of maturity and confirmation date of withdrawal. I couldn't help but co-relate the two incidents and pointed out that there may have been some technical error in their system in both the cases for which the backend team should be consulted. But instead of realising the insecurity of a customer regarding the account he became defensive and rude. In fact he was very abrupt and kept trying to terminate our conversation every time I talked about the second issue. The entire interaction with this person was unpleasant and made me consider if my continuing with Citibank India is a wise choice or not. I have often felt that Citibank India never takes responsibility and is not at all interactive with customers in addressing their complaints effectively. Also there is never a proper follow up.
Please check your accounts regularly Citibank customers and take screenshots of any unusual activity in your account which unfortunately I forgot to take regarding my deposits. Also please follow up on the Citibank cheques you issue or the nominees you register in your deposits and account . I know a NRI whose nominee was changed from his wife's name to a stranger's by Citibank without his knowledge. So always stay alert when banking with any banks for that matter and particularly well known banks like Citibank India. We tend to trust famous banks without realising that they too can make mistakes.
