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From: Jonathan Kamens on 24 Jul 2010 23:55
We recently got a new Citizens MasterCard (technically the
issuer is "RBS Citizens, N.A."). Five or six months ago, they
offered us the following promotion: if we (a) switched to
paperless statements, (b) paid our bill with direct debit, and
(c) set up at least one recurring monthly merchant payment on
our account, then they would give us a $50 credit, which would
appear in our account by May 31, 2010.

Note: There was no requirement to sign up or notify them that
we were taking advantage of the promotion or anything like
that. According to the offer, if we did those three things,
we'd get the $50 credit automatically.

I'm sure none of you will be shocked to hear that the credit
never showed up on our account.

I called them about it yesterday and spent almost 25 minutes
on the phone trying to get it resolved. Some of that was
navigating their inane automated system before being allowed
to speak to a person, and most of it was waiting on hold
while the person "researched" the issue.

Finally, the rep informed me that he would have to file a
request with their research department, and if they determined
that I was in fact eligible for the credit, I would receive it
within two statement periods.

So, let's see, they're already almost two months late paying
me the money they promised me, and now they want me to wait
another two months. And of course, during the delay, they, not
I, are making interest on the money they were supposed to pay
me by May 31.

I asked the rep to send me a letter confirming the details of
our conversation, since after their first failure to pay me
what they had promised, I was no longer willing to accept a
mere verbal promise to investigate the issue, and rather
wanted written confirmation that it was being investigated.

He refused to send such a letter. He said his department
simply couldn't do that. I pushed him on it a bit and then
took him up on his offer to speak with a supervisor about it,
although he insisted that the supervisor wouldn't be able to
give me a different answer. Strangely, when the supervisor
got on the line, she immediately agreed to send me the letter
I'd requested and said I'd receive it in 7-10 days.

I'm sure you will agree that it is exceedingly unlikely that
I'm the one and only person who was promised the $50 credit
who didn't receive it. The kinds of problems with cause
situations like this don't affect just one person. It would
not surprise me to learn that Citizens made the offer to
everyone but only actually pays it out to the pepole who have
the presence of mind to call and complain about not receiving
the credit. It's sort of how some of the rebate processing
companies conveniently delay processing of your rebate until
you call to ask what the heck is going on, at which point
suddenly your rebate is validated, although of course you
have to wait another 6-8 weeks after that before they
actually send you a check.

After I got off the phone with Citizens, I filed a complaint
with the office of the Attorney General of Massachusetts,
asking them to investigate just how many people Citizens
failed to pay the $50 they owed. I sent a copy of my
complaint to the CEO of Citizens.

I'm curious to hear whether other people were offered this
promotion; whether they attempted to take advantage of it;
and whether they received the $50 credit they were offered
without contacting Citizens to demand it.

I've also posted about this on my blog, and you can post
comments there rather than here if you'd like:

http://blog.kamens.us/2010/07/23/citizens-bank-fraud/
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