It wasn’t long ago when I was tirelessly collecting shareable Citi shutdown stories due to recent number of inquires and accounts and it was a difficult thing to bring those DPs on public display but in all likelihood now I have become that data point. I’ve been shutdown by Citi. The official reasons will be known later and I will discuss that later but for now, here is a post on the weird shutdown where I was shutdown at one moment, I wasn’t the other moment and then I was shutdown again.
What Triggered It?
It began with a fraud alert. It seems to always begin with a fraud alert. Few hours later everything was shutdown. I haven’t had new Citi cards in few months.
Why Shutdown?
We’ll have to wait for the letter but I can say that there was no funny business going on whatsoever. The most plausible explanation is likely that fraud alert triggered a manual review and someone didn’t like my credit report. I will wait for an official report before making an elaborate post on this matter.
How Do You Know You’re Shutdown?
Typically you’ll know your card is shutdown because your card stopped working and you logged into Desktop and see whole bunch of “This card is closed. For inquires, call 1-800-950-5114”. Alternatively, if you login into mobile device, you’ll notice an alert when you click on an individual card and when you click on the alert, it will read “This account is closed. Please visit Citi.com from your computer to unlink it from your profile.” I believe these are the same message that you get when you yourself close the account.
However, even after shutdown your account might all the sudden “work normally” i.e. no card closed notification and no declined charge but it will revert back to its old way few hours later. That is exactly what happened with me. One moment it showed all my cards were closed but within a few hours everything showed fine (on desktop and mobile) and my card even worked, then few hours later notice about cards being closed showed up again.
How Long Do You Have to Transfer Out Points?
MilesPerDay recalls hearing Citi zeroing points upon shutdown, and alike him, I wasn’t going to wait out to find out. But unlike him, I actually cashed out my points (or at least it’s processing…risky move I know).
I cashed out thank you points on same day of shutdown. The next day 1,000 points transferred instantly to Jetblue. I’m holding on to 1,000 TY points to see if they expire or not…you know for science.
How Do You Burn Points After Shutdown?
If you paid attention to details of above shutdown screen (desktop version), you’ll notice that there is no information on thank you points or other rewards on the right sidebar. Rewards information are instantly removed from sidebar after shutdown. You’ll see them again on sidebar if your account glitches and reverts back to non-shutdown phase for a few hours.
So, you’ll have to access your points by going to thank you portal through the tabs (Rewards and Benefits – ThankYou Rewards).
Closing Remarks
Sigh.
19 comments
Join the club. I got shut down after inquiring about a bank bonus not posting. Then eyeballs…then shutdown. But that was 4 years ago and haven’t missed them much – 2.5M AA miles plus $1600 net cash back for all those Executive AA cards. Plus unlimited 5x on a TYP card for a year = $$$$$.$$ cashed out for my mortgage. Plus a bunch of other cards. Good times!
Rofl, what was the official reason they officially gave for shutdown?
Not a big deal! As Jon mentioned above, 4 x executive cards aa miles bonanza, countless aa mailers app, 5 % typ for an year, citi prestige /citi premier, I don’t miss a bit. Was shut down down back in Sept 18 due to some stupid made up reasons. Now imagine doing all of the above with 4 times over (with household accounts). All were shut down down in a single swipe but I still have boatload of aa miles in my bank. While taking flight QR and Cathay in j for the party of four for the past few years. STILL have a soft spot for citi in my heart!
CITI bank also closed all my cards as well w/o any notice or warning. I can’t believe they can do that. I lost all my rewards points.
Citi bank closed my accounts without notice. It’s been used on April 29th and closed on May 10th. I lost all of the rewards that I’ve been saving. When I called the rep told me that it was due to a report from the credit bureau but my credit score is well. Every time I asked the rep a question she couldn’t hear me. So I couldn’t get more information but she was able to inform me that I could “reapply” for an account. At this point I’m not sure I want to waste my time doing that again as I had $160 in the rewards that they just took away from me. Even during Covid 19 I was making sure to make the payments on time. Yet they closed my account still not sure as to why.
Hi Jelena,
The same thing just happened to me!! I am so sad because that is my longest standing card and the highest limit. Ive been on hold all morning and they’ve been passing me around from rep to rep. My card was fine yesterday and today out of no where… no email… no phone call… no nothing… I finally got a rep who explained to me that the bank made the decision based on unsettled debt meanwhile… I make all my payments in a timely manner. I am so sad and frustrated and already dealing with the frustration of covid-19… I just can’t believe CITI is closing accounts (even on their most loyal) customers during this difficult time. Thank you for this website and page. People need to know what’s going on and if this keeps up… its only a matter of time before it goes in the news. Stay safe everyone and maybe this is all God’s plans. Im turning everything over to him :'( Thanks a lot CITI
This just happened to me too 🙁 I pay on time every month and never miss a payment. I just opened the card maybe 3 months ago, so I find it so unusual for them to shut it down like that. I’m waiting for the letter to confirm why exactly, but the rep referenced the credit bureau..but even if my score dropped, I’m not sure why they wouldn’t consider my good standing with the account and maybe try a reduction in limit first? so frustrating.
Same thing happened to me. Card worked fine 3 days ago. Today I ran the card and it didn’t work. Called the Citi number on the card and they passed me around to a couple people. Last one stated that “Your bank chose to no longer support your business”.
Always paid on time and had the card for 5 years. Not cool.
Great article! It’s very informative, so are the comments.
I just found out today that Citi closed my Citibank Best Buy credit card. Over the past month I’ve been paying all of my cards off completely, including this one. I have a feeling that paying it off completely made someone look closer and didn’t like something, not sure what. This card is almost 2 years old. It had a 2,000 limit when opened, after one year the limit was increased to 2,900 without me even asking for an increase. I was never late on a payment with this card. I was about to close a couple of other cards that were newer to increase the average account age in order to improve my credit rating, now I might keep them open longer.
In hindsight, I think that it would have been better to pay off a quarter of it at a time, they probably wouldn’t have closed it if I still owed them money. This just doesn’t make sense. Also, I would sometimes make payments inside Best Buy (very convenient) and almost every time I did that, I would make a purchase. Isn’t that the whole point of a retailer having credit cards, to encourage more purchases?
Oh well, screw Citi Bank. I have a business account with them, I’ll probably close it now.
Same thing happened to me. I had the card for about 6 months and paid on time. Today I call and the rep tells my card was closed. We are in a pandemic and the bank is closing cards. Why would you close the account? So frustrating? Tells me due to credit bureau but my credit is fine. Not cool Citibank.
They did the same thing to me. I’ve had my citi double cash back card with them since 2015 and received an offer to open a savings account with them last year when I received an offer to get 2.5% back through the end of 2020 for opening it.
Last month they closed my savings account with no explanation (that had a $117,000 balance) and after five calls was told their complance review department closed it and they didn’t have to give me an explanation and could close the account anytime.
Today I find out my citi double card was closed. I have NEVER carried a balance on this account and it’s paid in full every month and in fact I make a few payments every month on the account to keep the balance at zero.
I had the same response with their credit card team that did with my savings account being closed and went into the branch to talk to the banker that handles our commercial accounts and he couldn’t get through to anyone and called me back later this afternoon and said their compliance department also closed this account due to possible fraud. I asked how there could be fraud when I’ve had the account for five years and pay it in full. He said he thought it was due to excessive activity. I make a lot of large purchases that get reimbursed on my expense account and immediately pay the balance off as soon as I get my expense account reimbursement check each week. I thought that was the purpose of a rewards credit card. I know citi is out the 2 percent (I found out I’m not getting the 2.5 percent since the bank account wasn’t opened the required 12 months and how convenient for citi that they closed it just a few days before 12 months after opening it). I charged $12,000 this month and am pretty steamed that I’m forfeiting the $240 and could have received miles on another card. I’m also furious that they didn’t tell me and declined a charge with CVS caremark and now I’m waiting on a script.
The real killer is I warned our commercial banker I’m going to recomend to my boss we closed our citi account and he can’t figure out why. We’re not in the position to have our commercial account closed with no notice.
All my spending is going to my chase card. Hope they treated their customers better.
Just logged in received account closed alert.
true, true. I have not logged into my Citi checking (not a credit account) in a few weeks and today wanted to see what date I deposited the opening account funding and I got a strange screen that said one of my credentials for login has changed and that a debit card was sent out and a pin chosen that does not match my login. This makes zero sense at all because one does not login with a debit card number nor pin. So immediately I thought ‘well maybe they did send out a debit card and someone else got to it’. But no. The rep told me that my account was not sent a debit card and the new accounts department decided to close my account and the $5K (min. needed to avoid fees) was being sent to my address via check. It was just decided on 8/13 to do this so it is enroute. Now I am wondering if this is happening due to credit report. If so, then fine and well, but they took like 2 weeks to open the dern thing so why not pull a FICO back then if it is so concerning? People who are rebuilding their credit need a place to put income just like anybody else. Also, if the account was closed, why not just notify me by email? And the screen makes it sound like someone got a debit card issued for my account and now changed the login credentials. Ok, now there should be no shame in opening an account that offers a banking bonus, so that is about all they can pin on me. Now they are closing it less than 30 days prior to the bonus payout date. Slick. For $200 I hope their corporate office is Antifa’d.
CITI closed my checking account and credit cards. I was a Gold member for over 10 years with over 6 figures in the bank account. Paid on time and did not MS, nor did I cycle my CL. Used my cards for regular everyday purchases. In March/April right after COVID-19 hit CITI closed my checking account ( had a hard time getting my money back, had an attorney send them a letter) and my credit cards. Most branches in Chicagoland were closed. No one on the phone knew a thing nor would they give me any information or assistance, even after numerous calls and hours of waiting on hold. I was repeatedly told I needed to speak to someone in person or wait for the letter outlining the reason why (that letter came months later). Made an appointment with one of the few opened branches and they would not talk to me when I arrived. Never found out why. Finally spoke in person with a branch representative located in another branch that was open, basically was told it was because I used my card for a small Poshmark purchase and they reasoned it was a business transaction on a personal card. Then because two family members were on my account they had all their CITI credit cards reviewed and closed without any notice, around 9 or 10 CITI cards total, in May, 2020. They too paid on time and did not cycle their CLs. FICO scores were around 800 + for all three of us. In addition, there was a Macys card closed, that one of my relatives had for over 42 years and a Home Depot card closed, I believe because of the card issuer being the same. When one of the relatives received the letter outlining the reason for shut down, it stated because of sometimes using money orders for payment. Though that was the case for only a couple of the CITI cards.
Same thing happened to me around April 2020.
They closed all credit cards and all 250K TYP lost. I realize too late to transfer those points out. No one even checking their credit card account during April.
Never say a reason. At that time no branch is open, later on I asked for reason they say because of payment issues. I wouldn’t bother go to Citi again.
I just have my cards with Citibank closed today Oct 14 2020; one of them attached to my Costco membership.
Always pay on time, good credits so far.
Same thing, 5 years perfect payments. Not ever late once ever. Trying to bring my balance down, I paid off my rewards card and made a 3500 dollar payment on my citi Costco card and bam they lowered my limit then closed it. Unbelievable!! Their day will come. Garbage way of running a company. Go fuqeur self citi
My citi accounts were closed by the bank and they took away all my points (about 300K). All my accounts are in good standing. Really frustrating.
Wow. All these comments have similar experiences to mine. So I’ve been a customer since 2017, and they closed all my accounts just recently. I have three cards with them, and I have always paid on time. I didn’t miss a payment or make a late payment; in fact, I would usually pay days before the due date. I noticed this happened to the most loyal customers, who have 10–30 years of loyalty with the bank. I called the representative on the evening of closing, and they told me that it could be a security issue. I am unsure, but I immediately requested for one of my cards to be reinstated.