Citibank is systematic... Duh!!!

When I had applied for my Citibank credit card, I was asked to authorize them to auto debit the credit card bill’s minimum amount payable directly from my savings account. Well I know why this has to be done and I have done the same with ICICI bank too. The idea is to make sure that I pay at least the minimum amount payable towards the credit card bill in case I don’t pay the bill amount fully. Otherwise if I forget to pay the bill, I will end up getting a ridiculous late pay fine charged to my next bill. ICICI debits the minimum amount on the pay by date if I haven’t paid any money towards the bill till then.

Recently I made some purchases using my Citibank credit card and I promptly paid back the bill amount fully well before the pay by date. But on the pay by date, Citibank completely ignored my payment and went on to debit the minimum amount from my savings account just to make my total payment more than the bill amount. I called the customer care and explained the problem.

Customer Care: No problem sir. The extra amount which got debited from your account will be adjusted to your future purchases

Me: But why do you take money from my account even after me paying the full amount?

CC: Sir you have authorized us to debit the minimum amount from your savings account…

Me: But I have paid you the full amount…

CC: Yes sir next time onwards you should pay us only the amount less the minimum payment. The minimum amount will be taken automatically.

Me: But don’t you think it’s stupid? Aren’t you supposed to take the money only if I haven’t paid you?

CC: I know sir but it’s all systematic, you know. We can’t do anything…

Me: Yeah I’m sure… Next time I will be careful not to pay the bill fully.

Let me shout from the roof top one more time… Computers are supposed to make my life simpler and easier. Not to make me take out my calculator to do the math to find out how much I should pay my credit card company.

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