Citibank has an aggressive rate on savings accounts – around 5.15% FDIC insured. That’s a nice premium when our local bank is running 4.00% for savings accounts (at the highest). We’ve been putting away 30% of our net profits every month into this Citibank account so that we can pay our tax bill when it comes due and pay those quarterly estimates as well. June 15th is a quarterly estimate day.
I went to my online Citibank account to transfer the funds to pay my quarterly tax payment today. Much to my surprise, there was an error message. I called Citibank. After a long wait, I was told that whoops, my account was frozen and whoops, I couldn’t access the money for 5 to 7 days. The reason the monies are being held hostage is so asinine and stupid that it’s not worth wasting time to explain.
This account doesn’t just have $30 in it. It’s a large sum of money that belongs to the government. I need to pay the IRS today. I don’t have 5 – 7 days to wait. Despite talking to 5 people, no, Citibank can’t release the funds. They’re stuck. Unless I want to drive to Seattle to get them, Citibank will have my money for a week while I scramble to get my quarterly payments paid and funded today.
That’s not the customer service I want, expect and pay for from Citibank. I would close my account in a huff to show them exactly how I feel. But, they’ve bought themselves some time by freezing my account – five to seven days to have my money as a customer for just a little while longer.
I have the same problem. After several explanations, I still don’t understand the reason behind this. Needless to say, after I finally actually manage to close the account, I will not have any business anymore with Citibank.