Citi Shutdown Due to Number of Inquires/ Accounts #1

A while ago rumors of Citi shutdown due to inquires and accounts spread. I dug for further information hoping to eventually write an elaborate post on the matter. However, the evident lack of data points made it hard to write a decisive post on the matter. Regardless, I think these are unique and important data points on their own and definitely worth sharing. As such, for the first time ever, I’m sharing reader shutdown story on my blog.

I suppose I could have held on to these DPs until I had enough of them to tell a better story but I’ve been following this story for 3-4 months now with very little success. At this point, I think holding onto these DPs will do more harm than good. I hope that through these posts, we as a community can bring more awareness to these cases of shutdown from Citi.

Anyway, before we dig deep, here is the shutdown letter flat out stating that the reason for shutdown was high number of credit inquiries.

After careful consideration, we’ve had to close your account(s) because your credit report shows too many recent credit inquires.

Now I’ll quote the reader directly:

[I] Called 888-302-9291 (initially got a first line rep, I just said my accounts were closed over the weekend and need to speak to someone to assist) I was transferred to another person, Amanda, from Maryland. I forget what the name of the department was called.

I was made aware my accounts had been closed after an attempted purchase at the Apple store. And I wanted to call in and see why that happened.
Was put on hold for 5 minutes, and she [Citi representative] said the decision was based on the number of inquiries on my Experian credit report. I asked since I had not tried to get additional cards why was my credit report viewed. She explained that there is often a “random” review of accounts to ensure customers are in good standing or some BS like that with all their other $$ they owe to banks. With the fraud alert from the apple store, that the system decided to close my accounts. I said, I would love to speak to a manager.

The reader gave some interesting explanation (which I will not share) to the Citi rep and…

She put me on hold for another 10+ minutes during that time she spoke to her manager and said she is very sorry and apologized for them shutting my accounts down. She notified me that within the next 30 minutes my accounts will be reopened. I can confirm it happened almost the same time as I hung up with her.

Closing Thoughts

Yes, Citi shutdown due to high number of inquires is real.

This shutdown occurred because a fraud alert put Citi’s eye on the account. It wasn’t even an application that lead to shutdown!!