Consumer complaint received 2015-03-31
Product: Credit card — 
Issue: Privacy — 
Company: CITIBANK, N.A. (NV)

On Monday XXXX XXXX between XXXX & XXXX PST, I contacted my Sears credit card to inquire about a charge and a renewed credit card. I spoke to a representative who could do nothing but apologize about not being able to help me. That CSR could not access my account for some unexplainable reason. Suddenly, I was transferred to another CSR in XXXX. That representative immediately asked for my " personal password. '' I was confused by this because they are not allowed to ask for my personal password. They 're supposed to identify me by asking for the answer to certain secret questions, which I previously set up. When I inquired about why they were asking for my " personal password '' I was told that was the way it is. I was feeling suspicious of who I was speaking with after the transfer and believed it to not be Sears Credit Card services at all. Too many hackers and identity thief 's are out there today and after this experience I decided something was wrong. I then ask to speak to a manager, more precisely, someone higher up. The manager whose name was XXXX ( or XXXX ) got on the phone and was immediately defensive & borderline rude. She kept interrupting me & would not allow me to clarify the situation & basically was unhelpful. I never raised my voice or said anything inappropriate. I even asked about the language to be certain I understood what they were trying to ask of me. I thought maybe it was a matter of semantics & language. This manager would not acknowledge that to be the case, which made me feel hesitant to release any information to these " representatives. '' In any case, XXXX refused to neither help me & clarify my concerns nor solve any issues. She was quick to let me know that everyone followed a script and they have to ask the question as it is written. I understand this to an extent, because I worked in XXXX. We had scripts, but were also taught to listen to the customers. After all, they may a reason for their questions. Not everyone calling in is out to scream, yell & lodge complaints. That was not the purpose of my call. All I wanted was clarification about the personal password request & conduct my business accordingly. I did not get to conduct my business. I did not get answers to the questions I had. All I was told by this manager was that that 's the way it was ; reading the script verbatim and asking for customer 's personal passwords. In my opinion, this was utterly ludicrous. This is exactly how identity theft begins. I realized XXXX was not going to assist in any formidable way, which is a shame. I simply said thank you and have a nice day before hanging up. I was not about to get involved in a hacking situation or breach of security issue, especially not knowing for certain who I was actually speaking with. I wanted to report this because I do not believe I was represented well by Sears 's Credit Cards services. And I do not want to see other people have their personal account information compromised toward the possibility of identity theft. These representatives forgot that they are a consumer as well & they did n't provide good customer service. They did not care and put my personal account in jeopardy. In the end, I did not believe I was talking to the credit card company and if I was talking to the credit card company then they should probably go back and review that call center location in XXXX and the practices they have written into their script, which promotes jeopardizing customer accounts. What concerns me is that Sears did not protect me or was concerned with my personal security at all & it brings to question things such as a lack of professionalism, identity theft & good customer service. I also seriously question their business ethics & will consider changing my services.