Citibank - trouble with transfer of money between accounts - poor customer service

Complaints.com received the following consumer message on March 29, 2002:

From: Clare Mayer [Email User]

Citibank - trouble with transfer of money between accounts - poor customer service

On Sunday, March 24th I phoned Citibank 800 custmer service number and requested a transfer of $5000 from my market rate account to my checking.

I should have known that this transaction was going to go bad when the CS rep first told me I couldn't transfer money out of this account and also the number of times she had to put me on hold to complete the transaction. I was told the money would be in my account by Tuesday morning. When I checked my account on Wed, March 27th, the transfer had not been posted. I called CS and spoke to a supervisor who could not say why the transaction had not been completed, but she would make sure it was done and would monitor my checking account to be sure I did not got into an overdraft position. I checked my account again on Thurs evening and the money had not yet arrived. I spoke to a CS supervisor again and of course, they had no explanation.

They did offer to put through another transfer request but that request would not post until Monday, April 1st. Waiting 8 days for a transfer to be posted is really unacceptable. The other alternative I was given was to call back on Friday during business hours to follow up on the transfer again. I did call again on Friday, March 29th, and spoke to Sedonie in Client Relations - she was the first supervisor I spoke to on the 27th. She of course again did not know why the transaction hadn't been posted. When I reminded her that she was supposed to monitor my checking account for an overdraft, she indicated that she had and my account did not go into overdraft.

When I told her it certainly did and questioned the account she was monitoring, it turned out she was monitoring the wrong checking account! As of Friday, AM, the money will be in my account on Sat, March 30th. To additionally compound the situation, I needed to do another transfer involving the same accounts, but this time I called my branch who informed me that I had to do that over the phone with customer service. Oh really!