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keep your citi card

Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2018 9:32 am
by ashtabula
I see a lot of people canceling their citi cards over policies coming from them. That may not be the best form of protest for you. They have already estimated the amount of cancellations and are good with it.

Keep in mind canceling a card can negatively affect your credit rating, creating what could be considerable cost for you.

There is another option, Keep your citi card and use it every month. Every month charge a few dollars, as little as possible, a cup of coffee, a paper. Citi card will now need to generate a statement and process a payment. If you charged $5.00 citi bank will make 15 cents. I'm not sure what it cost citi to generate and process, but let's call it wash of the 15 cents they made. That would leave them at a loss for the postage. Along with this keep an eye out for their junk mail they will be sending. Return the prepaid envelope empty, I get at least one a month. There are approximately 550,000 permit holders in Ohio. If every permit holder did this, it would cost citi bank about $465,000 per month or $5,478,000 per year. It will cost you the postage, a mailed check being the most expensive to process, but some things are just worth the price. If you want citi bank to listen, you need to speak in a language they understand.

Re: keep your citi card

Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2018 10:37 am
by techmike
Oh, I like that idea.

Re: keep your citi card

Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2018 11:57 am
by WhyNot
aha

Yes actually, I think I might apply. Make sure to check 'yes I want a mailed statement' vs. emailed.

I am doing effectively the same thing w/ WMart. Its hard to not shop there, so, I severely limit things to sales & clearance. For example I just found motor oil at over 50% clearance. Now for sure they made some $, but not as if I purchased full price.I also use their price saver app and apply the savings, which they restrict to using in-store, to buying hunting licenses, gift cards etc. Low or lower profit items.

Their idea; p-saver app generates $$ later, customer comes back & buys more stuff. I agree, but I've modded what I buy.

Re: keep your citi card

Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2018 10:29 pm
by Bruenor
Every time you use your card there's a percentage and transaction fee that goes to the card company. these are fees charged to the retailer that you as a shopper don't see. so every time you use the card no matter how small the card company gets paid.

I'd rather give them nothing at all. My credit rating is decent enough that cancelling one card would barely register.

Re: keep your citi card

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 6:41 am
by JustaShooter
True, but their fee on a $2 coffee is so small that if that's all you buy each month, they will lose money on you due to handling, postage and paperwork.

Re: keep your citi card

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 11:31 am
by ashtabula
It's hard to get ones head around just how big citi bank is. They lost 18.3 billion dollars and yet someone thought alienating customers was the way to go. I really can't understand what's behind a move like this, but I can help them along.

My Google fu is lacking to say the least, but a quick search shows about 174,000,000 households in the US. Of that number, 44% own a gun. That would be 76,560,000 gun owning families. If everyone got together on some selected day and sent one empty prepaid envelope back to citi bank it would cost them 32,920,000 dollars. Perhaps a little more if it jammed up the burster and they had to repair it.

Someone will notice, I'm not sure what they will do, but they will notice.