Anne N.
Fraud & Incompetence are the rule at Citibanamex
On April 27, 2021, I applied for and was granted a Costco Citibanamex credit card. The application was processed by a Banamex employee who works in a kiosk at the Costco Querétaro store, an hour's drive away from where I live in San Miguel de Allende. Part of the deal was that I had to agree to the annual automatic renewal of my executive membership using that credit card, which I thought was fine at the time—but in the course of a year, it became a nightmare. As it turns out, the employee who processed my card erroneously entered my nationality as Mexican even though I presented my U.S. passport and stated that my nationality is USA. They also failed to check a box indicating my marital status. But I didn't know that. Somehow I was able to use the temporary card for that day's purchase at Costco anyway; and once the plastic card arrived in the mail, I was able to validate it at a Banamex ATM. So I thought everything was fine. A few weeks later, when I tried to use the card to buy gas for our home, it was rejected. Then I tried using it at a few more places and again it was rejected. Maybe I can only use the card at Costco, I thought—but the next time I shopped there, they also rejected the card. That's when I made the first of several dozen phone calls to the number on the back of the card and found out that the Banamex employee had made an error in the application and that's why the card wasn't working. So I asked them to cancel the card and they said they couldn't do that. I would have to cancel online or go back to the same Costco store where I got the card and ask them to cancel it. I did that, and they said no, we can't do it here, you have to visit a bank branch. There is only one Banamex branch in San Miguel, so on May 26, 2021, I went there and after three hours, all they did was to fill out a form asking for a change in my account data. Supposedly they sent that to headquarters, and they said they'd call me within 10 days, but of course I got no phone call. Meanwhile, I knew I had a balance from that initial purchase at Costco, and they had told me the payment due date would be around the 20th of June (not May, for some reason). Sure enough, I got a statement in the mail dated "April 27 - June 4" with a due date of June 25. On June 24, I went to the bank and paid the full balance. Then I got in line to speak with a banker and told them it had been a month since they had filed a change of my account data, and I hadn't heard back from them despite their promise to call within 10 days. After a phone call to HQ, the agent said all she could do was file the same form again. I never got another statement from Citibanamex, and never used the card again, since it hadn't worked. In fact, I put the card in a drawer and forgot all about it. And they never called about the account data—which meant that I was never assigned a code to set up online banking, so not only was I not receiving statements on paper, I wasn't receiving them electronically either, and I couldn't manage my account online because I couldn't access it. Almost a year later, in late March 2022, I started getting phone calls from Citibanamex telling me to pay my balance. I told them I couldn't possibly have a balance because the card was not usable. I figured they had canceled it because of their employee's errors. But they said no, in their system it says the card is validated and that the charge was for the automatic renewal of my Costco executive membership. I said I hadn't gotten the benefit of the card as per the contract with Banamex, and that I had asked for them to cancel the card when it had a zero balance and they had refused. They told me I would have to go to the Costco store and talk to them, or call their customer assistance line. The bank couldn't reverse the charges, they said. Of course at Costco, they pointed back to the bank, saying they couldn't do anything because it is the bank's automated system that accepted the charge, and that they didn't care which card I used but I had to pay the membership. I said okay, if I pay here at the store, will you refund the charge to the Citibanamex card? No, we can't do that, they said. You need to ask at the bank. So back to the bank I went—several more times, in fact—but they refused to do anything until I paid. They said once I paid, I could cancel the card. I said no, I tried that and you wouldn't do it. They said I should talk to Costco and get them to reverse the charges, then go online and cancel the card myself. I told them I have no online access to my account. They said, "Well, you have to validate the card at the ATM." I did that when I first got it, I said. Do it again, they told me—so I tried but the ATM would not accept my PIN. By mid-April, I was getting up to 10 calls a day from the Citibanamex collections agency demanding payment. Finally on April 22, I went to the bank and paid. Banamex won, and I have a useless card. NEVER AGAIN!!!