Changes to Citibank Accounts (Monthly fee waivers removed)

The following information is from the Citibank Online Marketplace Addendum, but I assume it will apply to all accounts. link (See the last few pages for the changes to the accounts)

Looks like they are trying to "retrench" and serve customers with higher balances now.

Reimbursement of Non-Citibank ATM Fees (Non-CitiGold)
Effective January 1, 2010
* Limit will increase to 6 times per month from 4 times per month
* Now limited to $5.00 for each transaction

You will receive reimbursement if you meet ALL of the following:
* You are a new client with a mailing address-as of 3 months after establishing your banking relationship online-that is outside a county where Citibank operates a Financial Center; and
* You established your banking relationship online and chose a Citibank EZ Checking, Citibank Account, or Citibank Everything Counts online; or you open an additional account with any such package online; and
* You maintained the account minimum balance to avoid monthly maintenance fees in the calendar month prior to the end date of the statement period in which the ATM transactions occurred.

Reimbursement of Non-Citibank ATM Fees (CitiGold)
Effective January 1, 2010
* Now limited to $5.00 for each transaction

You will receive reimbursement if you meet ONE of the following:
* Your CitiGold Account had a combined balance range of $500,000 or more for the calendar month prior to the ATM transaction (regardless of how you opened it -- see the PDF for details); OR
* Your CitiGold Account was opened outside of a Citibank Financial Center via Citibank Online and, as of 3 months after establishing your banking relationship online, your mailing address is outside a county where Citibank operates a Financial Center; OR
* Your CitiGold Account was opened in a Citibank Financial Center in DE/MA/PA or outside a Citibank Financial Center and your account address at the time of opening was in DE/MA/PA.

Citibank Access Account
Effective February 1, 2010
* Monthly fee waiver for direct deposit is removed
* No way to waive fees going forward for this account type

Citibank EZ Checking Account
Effective February 1, 2010
* Monthly fee waiver for having direct deposit OR 2 bill payments is removed
* You still can have fees waived with a minimum of $1,500

My gosh, just shows how uncompetitive their bank accounts are. At least at BofA, if you open it online, its free of any maintainence fees and you don't have to worry about keeping any certain $$ in the account, maintaining direct deposit, etc. If anything, it would be wise for Citi to make a move like BofA did with their checking accounts, but I guess not; they should do it to compete with them and local banks.

NorthStar2020 said: Where does it say the monthly fee is not waived for direct deposit or 2 bill payments?

The very last page of the PDF states the following:
"Effective February 1, 2010, the Citibank® EZ Checking Account monthly maintenance fee will no longer be waived with a monthly direct deposit to, or two or more qualifying bill payments from, the account."

They basically kill all monthly fee waivers for low-end accounts.

OP - you should add to the header "Monthly fee waivers removed"

HMm, if this goes to everyone, haven't gotten any info yet but it looks like goodbye citibank!

Thanks for info. Where are people going to switch to? Need a place w/ local presence in N. CA.

verygreen said: Argh.
Citibank was the only reasonable place I found with free account and ability to make international wire transfers online for a somewhat reasonable fee.
Any recommendations on who else has reasonably priced international wire transfers that do not require branch visits (I live in area pretty low on bank branches presence) and free checking?how about wamu/chase??

If the feature is so important to you, just keep $1500 in the account

SUCKISSTAPLES said: verygreen said: Argh.
Citibank was the only reasonable place I found with free account and ability to make international wire transfers online for a somewhat reasonable fee.
Any recommendations on who else has reasonably priced international wire transfers that do not require branch visits (I live in area pretty low on bank branches presence) and free checking?how about wamu/chase??

Wamu requires (required when it was still wamu) a branch visit and I do not have any branches within a couple hundred miles.
I have not thought about it after the Chase got them. Anyway I already closed my former Wamu account after my CD expired and seeing how
Chase included all the inactivity fees and otherwise killed the wamu deals. And their wire transfers are $40 (vs $30 at citi). (it's $50-$80 for the banks and CUs I have locally).

[quote]
If the feature is so important to you, just keep $1500 in the account
Well, in the typical FWF-style, I was hoping there are other options that I might be not aware of. (I don't use the feature all that often,
but still do use it).
$1500 at 2% APY is $30 lost annually (the combined account balances seems do not include UMA and USA accounts with, only day-to-day savings at 0.25% APY qualifies of the free ones)

It appears your avoid fees if you have a CITI gold account (which has $100,000 relationship rule), but you apparently have six months before they start charging you. It may be possible to convert to CITIgold to at least postpone the fees.

A disadvantage to this is that the online form for conversions requires permission to do a credit check. A E-mail inquiry got back the reply that they do routinely do credit checks on such conversions (although it wasn't clear whether these would be hard or soft). Anyone know, or have experience.

A problem my wife has is a promotional offer accepted that that requires gives 10,000 points after 3 months and after six months (in both cases other actions were required such as two bill pays), and then the account must stay open to actually receive the points (no clear whether changing from a CITIbank account with its $6,000 minimum would work). Was considering a CITI gold conversion as a way to avoid the balance requirements (and probably get better service) until the promotinal requirements were met.

Given their offering of rates lower than online banks offer, it is likely this will cost them some customers who kept a small balance so they had a convenient local branch when they wanted one.

Since in our locality there are numerous local banks which provide free checking and teller services, our CITI accounts will probably be eventually closed. Recently spare money has been in a Schwab account since it provides easy transfers to and from the Schwab brokerage account and respectable rates (1.05% on saving and .7% on checking if I remember right).

I'm pretty sure so long as your UMA & USA accounts are linked to your checking, their balance would count toward the combined average balance to avoid the fees. The same is true for linked Citi credit cards (outstanding balance; NOT CL).

I used to have the EZ checking but I've since converted it to the Citibank Account (for more TYP). Regardless, I never have more than $10 in my Citi checking but I never got charged any monthly fees.

verygreen said: $1500 at 2% APY is $30 lost annually (the combined account balances seems do not include UMA and USA accounts with, only day-to-day savings at 0.25% APY qualifies of the free ones)

Though I never try it myself, I heard you can pretty much open those doors with ANY card that has a magnetic strip on it, i.e., hotel card key, gift card, etc.

busterbaxter said: ...although I hear that you can also swipe your non-Citi US ATM cards...

does it mean the account needs to 1500.00 no not be charge no fee whats so ever.

verygreen -

Money Market products include, USA and UMA. So yes, those count toward the balance requirement.

Aha. Missed that the USA and UMA are actually money market accounts.
Thanks for pointing that out. They certainly hid it well
The language about counting in balance requirements towards certain packages is too vague on the other hand. I bet they have different packages with different requirements.

verygreen said:
[quote]
If the feature is so important to you, just keep $1500 in the account
Well, in the typical FWF-style, I was hoping there are other options that I might be not aware of. (I don't use the feature all that often,
but still do use it).
$1500 at 2% APY is $30 lost annually (the combined account balances seems do not include UMA and USA accounts with, only day-to-day savings at 0.25% APY qualifies of the free ones)

In the typical FWF spirit you should read the terms carefully first before debating an incorrect position

This is not meant to defend Citibank as a whole but I actually like its banking operation, locally anyway. Semi-decent interest (DEFINITELY NOT 0.02% like BofA or Chase), decent online banking and nice and helpful tellers and bankers, just to name a few.

In its final days, I was actually hoping Citibank, not Chase, would buy WaMu. But oh well...

dumroo said: I still claim - go to a small local bank - do not give your money and business to a big bank that treats you like dirt, takes your money and gambles it away. Every time you provide a dollar of deposit, it gives them the ability to "create" 25 bucks of wagers.

the reason why i open citi was the hassle free of making deposit and no deposit slips to fill out. your in and out of branch fast. and you can always go to a 711 make a check deposit. i prefer Citibank over bank of america or chase any day there always lines and atm are always broken or packed. they offer the most ATM access and Online transfer to any bank platform is superior than competition. thank point rewards program is awesome.

I've been keeping a small EZ-Checking and EZ-Savings account there with two $5 billpays under the theory that it would help prevent adverse action against my Citi-managed credit cards. But not for $7.50/month. I've been thinking about setting up a small account at State Farm Bank to take advantage of thier ATM fee-refund policy, and this is the impetus to do that.

I'll add going to Citibank to close the account to my Black Friday to-do list.

It would be nice to know what these occasional offers are that make it worth paying the fee?

Received the notice in the mail today.
Time to close the account since Ally and Charles Schwab are serving my needs very well.

I closed out my checking, savings and CD earlier this month. For the closure of CD, I need to send in a letter or visit a branch. It cannot be closed by a phone call.

I just got hit by unexpected fees.

After 2 accounts showed up as overdrawn, I placed a call to CITI (India) produced a representative who could establish only that they were overdrawn because of a CITI bank fee, but CITI apparently lacked the sophisticated debiting system of some banks where you could determine what a charge was for and was told to call back tomorrow when the accounts had updated. Eventually he did reach a "spervisor" who stated they related to not having maintained required minimum balances.

Since I had been told fees were waived because of senior citizen status I protested. I was then told to go by a branch. Eventually he got someone on the line who determined that for checking accounts to be waived because of senior citizen status they had to be "basic" ones, some that other representatives had not been aware of or had not told me. I got the fee waived and the account reclassifed. This reclassification eliminates the token interest rates on checking.

Apparently to avid fees on saving accounts, the senior citizen linked saving accounts can only be of certain types (and possibly limited to only one.) Eventually, after a transfer to a supervisor (apparently fellow in Florida)A fee on a saving account was waived and then the account closed. They said something abut it having been opened with a waiver that had expired (news to me).

As a precaution I then closed several small saving accounts with token with trivial balances.

If accounts were changed to a basic saving (apparently the only fee free one for Senior citizens)the interest rates would go down (to .25%), and also the account numbers had to be changed (Old account closed and new one opened).

Alas, there were two accounts with $1,000 which had been opened with a promise of 5,000 AA miles., and I had worries that changing the account numbers would prevent the promised miles (condition not in the promotion as I remembered, but a worry). I was able to get a 2 month waiver of the fees.

All this detail is partially to warn that the Senior Citizen waiver is not what I had reported and been told. Also to watch out for fees on savings accounts appearing if you do get the Senior Citizen waiver (due to saving accounts no longer being linked to the right accounts).

CITI is clearly non-competitive on rates of return now. It is also clear there is a very high level of in competence since representatives have repeatedly given differing information on terms of accounts. Even though I got fees waivers, the total amount of time spent on the phone (including earlier calls) is excessive, suggesting avoiding this bank unless they have a very well located branch for you.