Consumer complaint received 2024-03-22
Product: Checking or savings account — Savings account
Issue: Managing an account — Deposits and withdrawals
Company: CITIBANK, N.A. (CO)

Summary : Citibank deactivated my $ XXXX savings account and insisted I send them a letter via mail to reactivate it. XXXX letters, XXXX  months, and XXXX hours spent on XXXX customer service calls later, and I still do not have access to my savings in order to pay my bills. I don't know what else to do. 

Full Version : For context, I have a high yield savings account with Citibank with a little over $ XXXX in balance. I only use it to park extra cash when I don't need it so that I can benefit from the high interest rate. I have a separate checking account with another bank which I use for paying off credit cards, bills, direct deposits, etc. 

Several months ago, I got a letter from Citibank warning me that my savings account was at risk for going inactive due to a lack of qualifying transactions. When I got this letter, I made a deposit into my Citibank savings account from my other bank checking account to show Citibank that I actively use the account. 

Fast forward to XX/XX/year>, the contractor I hired to finish my basement completes the job, and I owe him a big check. I try to move money from my Citibank savings account to my other bank checking account using the Citibank app, but the app informs me that I can not make any transfers because the account was deactivated. 

I call Citibank and the XXXX informs me the account was deactivated due to a lack of qualifying transactions. I inform her that I had recently made a deposit. She is surprised to verify this was true, but then looks into the fine print and informs me that only ATM withdrawals count as a qualifying transaction. This was not made clear to me in the letter I was sent and also makes little sense given this is a high yield savings account, not an account I would use for ATM withdrawals. 

Anyways, now that I know my account was deactivated, I start the long and painful journey to get the account reactivated. The XXXX informs me there are XXXX ways to do this : XXXX. Go into your local branch. I ask where the closest branch is, and it is in XXXX XXXX, Nevada. XXXX miles away from where I live in XXXX, Colorado. 

XXXX. Send a letter in the mail requesting reactivation. 

Since option XXXX is the only viable option for me, I go ahead and send the letter on XX/XX/XXXX. The letter contains the verbatim wording provided to me by the XXXX. XXXX month and XXXX more XXXX calls go by and my account is still inactive. Since I do not have a tracking number for the letter ( it was sent via XXXX from my mailbox ), the only guidance customer service provides is to " try sending another letter. '' On XX/XX/XXXX, I send a XXXX letter, this time paying {$10.00} for priority shipping from XXXX. XXXX more month and XXXX more XXXX calls go by, and my account is still inactive. The CSRs have confirmed that my letter was received on XX/XX/XXXX ( based on the tracking number ), but they do not have visibility into the back office operations to check on the status. On every call, the Citibank CSRs have committed to provide follow ups to me via phone or email by specified dates, and to this day, not a single one has made good on their commitment. 

At this point, I don't know what else I can try except taking a day off of work, booking a flight to XXXX XXXX, and hoping that a branch employee can take care of reactivating my account, but it doesn't seem fair to me that I have to spend my money and vacation days just to get access to my savings. I have considered hiring an attorney as a next step, but I wanted to check here for guidance first.