Complaint Review: Citifinancial Retail Services - Charlotte North Carolina

I agree. Those are good ideas. We have to be on our toes. In fact, we can't trust anyone in corporate America anymore. We have to be vigilant at ALL times, and prepare for the worst while hoping for the best. Protect yourself at ALL times, keep ALL paperwork, ask all of the questions, and if they can't answer them directly, DON'T DO BUSINESS WITH THEM! In my mind, most of the businesses in America that we must interact with to get the things we need are out to screw us at the first opportunity.That has become the American way in business. Capitalism has degenerated into a game of "screw your neighbor. Protect yourself at all costs.

I am not an employee or any other representative of CitiFinancial Retail Services -- I am an accountant. I purchased a washer and dryer from Granite Furniture here in Salt Lake City in Dec 2003 and financed $661.56 under a 12 month no interest plan. Citi offers financing for various merchants accross the country, often these companies are in distress and are looking for ways to reduce their costs. I could have put this purchase on a credit card at 12% interest, but free interest is attractive I've read many complaints here and even the one I'm repsonding to seems sincere. However, there are things that you can do to prevent being "ripped off". First, under a 12 month plan you should distribute the payments evenly. Don't wait until the last payment is due to make a balloon payment. A good rule of thumb is to make 3 times the minimum payment. If you can't do that, be prepared to pay the interest when it is due. Second, set up your payments to be made electronically through a program like Microsoft Money or though your banks online payment system. This will help make sure that the payment is received on time, on the due date. Third, always allow 10 business days if you mail your payment. Make sure you count bank holidays. If there is a chance that your payment will be late, overnight it. Citi should send a letter when your account is first set-up that tells you where to send it. If you can't do this be prepared to pay late fees and interest. Fourth, keep ALL your paperwork until all the payments have been made. This includes the sales order, statements and letters. Make sure you read everything. Understand the terms! Everything is spelled out in the terms of the agreement and there is nothing illegal about it. Finally, I am sure that CitiFinancial Retail Services has problems. My first statement was mailed to an address in Pittsburgh. I sent my first payment electronically 2 days late and was assessed a late charge of $29. When I called the customer service department they waived the fee as a "one time courtesy". I will be making my final payment under the 12 month no interest plan on 11/16, even though the offer expires 1/1/05. Any later than that and I risk having to pay $80 in interest. Of course, had I simply made the minimum payment of $20, over $180 would have been due. These credit plans can be a wise decision if you understand what is at risk and give yourself plenty of time to meet the terms.

I have been suffering in a nightmare with Citifinancial after they purchased my furniture account from Wickes. When we were in financial hardship early this year, they OFFERED to place us on their CAP(consumer assistance program).... since then, they have misled us on the payment amount, continuously placed the account in collections, never adjusted our account to show current after we were forced to pay a large amount of money to "get current"(we've had to do that twice since being on this so called "program")... Our account keeps going back into collections after we've been assured by several different people that our account is in good standing(I believe they do play the "good reap-bad rep" game, as someone has said on this site about Citifinancial. We are keeping our statements and meticulous notes now on every call we make, and are building a good case against them that validates what we are saying. Just two weeks ago, my wife talked to a rep named "Maria" who assured us (again)that our account was in good standing and not in collections and she would personally ensure that our statements would come to us reflecting the proper payment amount, and not show all of the different charges to our account that don't belong there. And as I knew it would, our latest statement that we got yesterday shows once again a large amount of past due payment, as well as all kinds of different interest charges at different rates on different amounts of the account balance, and I am once again receiving calls at my office from their collections dept. that my account is in collections and has a large amount past due. So once more, I get to go through the hassle of dealing with the collections dept and CS dept. and get the same line from them and the same promises, and the same stupid non-results as evidenced on the following month's statement. Meanwhile, every month as this continues, my wife's credit report is being butchered by Citifinancial(one CS agent said he "pulled out credit bureaus" during a call and said that we weren't being reported delinquent, the next time I talked to a differesnt CS agent and told her this, she said that the previous agent did not pull our reports as she doesn't have the ability to do that from her computer, and she lied to us. And as for people like Rob, Regina and Jack, you must all be either employees of Citifinancial trying to keep people here off balance, or are friends or relatives of Citifinancial employees, else why would you be on here in this forum defending Citifinancial's incompetence and fraudulent behavior? Don't tell me we're the ones at fault here! There's more of us here being screwed around by these thugs than there are of you trying to blow sunshing up our behinds about the fine folks at Citifinancial. WAKE UP AND LOOK AROUND YOU!!

When you say consumers should take responsibility for their financial downfalls I guess you mean those people who would just sit around and be kicked and battered by predatory companies such as CitiFinancial which targets poor and minorites and anyone else with bad credit. Would you want to pay 15% or even 20% on a mortgage? This is why companies such as CitiFinancial are in business. You are so far behind the eight ball you must be an employee or sometype of stock holder because you sure are not a customer. If you were you would have had a problem with the lowdown underhanded way they harass then steal someones property or money! The worst part about the whole problem with CitiFinancial and other predatory companies is most consumers inherit them. Their loans are sold to them right through the back door. Once they are servicing your loan they are like ticks on a dog. Sucking your blood and making your life miserable. I am convinced they us tactics to under cut those customers who try and refinance away from them. If anyone would like to file a class action suit file a Rip-off Report on this site, once we find a lawyer, Rip-off Report will contact us to contact that lawyer.. CLICK here to see why Rip-off Report, as a matter of policy, deleted either a phone number, link or e-mail address from this Report.

i worked for citifinancial for 4 years, and the retail center is a joke,a customer can not walk a payment from the retail center in their local office and pay it off or even pay on it it has to go to the payment center and they only post the payments once a week, this is how they make so much money they do rip people off this way. you would be surprized at the shady things they do. and this is why they are so big

A quote "Sometimes it is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought of as a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt". We are all to often pointing the finger at someone else. Take responsibility for your own. You should have sent it priority mail, or insured mail. If it was really that much money, why take the chances that the Post office could screw up. We are all human. How about walk in the payment, pay cash instead. They did do you a service. Sounds like the post office did you wrong. These companies won't make any money by intentionally making people mad. The make money by having good customer service and good products. They are the largest Financial Group in the World. They must be doing something right. Best of luck to you.

first of all whats with name calling that realy not called for: Second off is you complain but i bet didnt give us whole story like what address did send it too, did include payment stub, did put your account # on check, plus why are u send credit card payment to citi financial they dont do anything with credit cards plus when i bet ask you to send copy payment did you do this plus did you have to pay for interest on account before you start to complain give whole story please (also yes there was fine given by sec but was for morg ins over payment before start give wrong info just don't)

first of all whats with name calling that realy not called for: Second off is you complain but i bet didnt give us whole story like what address did send it too, did include payment stub, did put your account # on check, plus why are u send credit card payment to citi financial they dont do anything with credit cards plus when i bet ask you to send copy payment did you do this plus did you have to pay for interest on account before you start to complain give whole story please (also yes there was fine given by sec but was for morg ins over payment before start give wrong info just don't)

first of all whats with name calling that realy not called for: Second off is you complain but i bet didnt give us whole story like what address did send it too, did include payment stub, did put your account # on check, plus why are u send credit card payment to citi financial they dont do anything with credit cards plus when i bet ask you to send copy payment did you do this plus did you have to pay for interest on account before you start to complain give whole story please (also yes there was fine given by sec but was for morg ins over payment before start give wrong info just don't)

first of all whats with name calling that realy not called for: Second off is you complain but i bet didnt give us whole story like what address did send it too, did include payment stub, did put your account # on check, plus why are u send credit card payment to citi financial they dont do anything with credit cards plus when i bet ask you to send copy payment did you do this plus did you have to pay for interest on account before you start to complain give whole story please (also yes there was fine given by sec but was for morg ins over payment before start give wrong info just don't)

Rob you pathetic hillbilly trash - how much is Citifinancial paying you to shill for their company? Is it worth receiving HAMMERTIME to your filthy shill mouth? POW! I'm calling you out, suckah! This gentleman sent his payment in more than TWO WEEKS before it was due. TWO WHOLE WEEKS! Who do you think is to blame? The post office? Sure, blame them you stupid shill! We've called out the Citigroup for years here because of their Primerica scam. Looks like we've stumbled upon another one!

When it comes to loans of any sort,including credit cards, the consumer should always make their best effort to read the terms and agreement from front to back. I work for a creditor and have heard, all too many times, "....the member agreement? Like I keep that...." This only tells me that people don't take these loans seriously. You're going to just borrow $5000 from the bank then brush it off without concern? Think again, it's a lot of money you owe, take time to read. The other comment I get quite frequently is "...oh, you mean the FINE print?!...." Well, you know it's there, obviously, you just acknowledged it. So, read it. Most promotions state that they're valid through the FIRST DAY OF THE BILLING CYCLE THAT INCLUDES YOUR PROMO DAY. Also, if you send in a payoff balance and you don't receive a statement showing it's paid off or that your payment wasn't received, try calling and verifying, stop assuming. I'm a consumer, also, but I make sure I know all the terms before I commit to anything and then I do my best to keep track of what I borrow and the terms associated with the loan. The majority of businesses follow strict guidelines, they, legally, have to or there'll be no business. So, usually, when something goes wrong you can be sure it's the consumer's fault.