Brooks Brothers Card-Citi Cards Beware Brooks Brothers Citi Bank Credit Cards! P.O. Box 6403 Sioux Falls, SD 57117-6403 Nationwide

I am a disabled adult on a fixed income and the issue I experienced with this company was annoying, costly and later I found, illegal.

I had tried to make a payment on my Brooks Brothers-Citi Bank credit card and was automatically enrolled in auto pay for my account. I could see the “Automatic Payments Set Up” on the screen but when I treid to click on it and shut it off I was blocked.

I was not aware of this until I noticed my Bank account going negative at the end of the month with a payment being deducted for payment on a balance on that same card. This would not have been a problem except for the fact that I was not aware of the auto pay being input and as such did not budget the money to cover the payment.

By the time I found out, my account had been hit twice and the resulting fees totaled $70.00. 

I called the company and explained what had happened and the young lady on the other end of the line told me she saw the auto pay and had removed it, that it would not happen again. The following month on the same day, a payment was again attempted and again my bank hit twice to the tune of $70.00. 

At this point I went to my bank and asked about putting a block on that company for ACH payments. They informed me that they would have to block all ACH payments and as such all of my automatic payments for my medical needs would have to be done manually. I had these payments taken successfully for many years and did not want to stop them.

I again contacted Brooks Brothers and told them that I wanted to speak to a manager to get to the bottom of why this phantom payment kept popping up on my account. I DID get a manager who told me that I was wrong that this couldn't happen and I was either lying or not too bright. I assured her that I could in fact prove what I was saying and had bank statements to support it.

I looked at my webpage with the company, knowing I had a small balance for a sweater, $169.00 and figured I'd budget that amount to at least save me the bank fees, and then work on closing the account. Unfortunately, two days before the payment was due, I looked and saw that a payment for $392.84 was being pulled as there was another sweater purchased and they added it to the monthly balance even though it fell after the close of billing for that month. I was irate, I called the customer service department at Brooks Brothers and was told by the two people I spoke with that I was crazy, there was no automatic payment coming out and that "I should seek medical help because I was obviously nuts!" I then called the Citi Bank people and their tech support people said that they couldn't do anything for me. I deposited an additional $400.00 in my Credit Union account online to cover the cost (it was a Saturday) knowing the bank would be hit again. I told them that there WOULD be an ACH made and I WOULD be overdrawn ad I not covered what they showed was coming out and the people again said that I didn't know what I was talking about and that no money would be taken, that I was out of my mind and they promptly hung up.

On Monday morning I checked and my Credit Union and the payment of $392.84 was listed on the statement. I immediately called Brooks Brothers and got on the line with a lady who said she would look into the issue while I was on hold. When she returned, she said that she DID see an anomaly and that she was contacting the Tech Support people on the issue. I waited. About half an hour later she came back on the line, she apologized for the issue and said that it took some investigation but they figured it out and that I wouldn’t need to worry about it again.

I told her that I had been told this before and that just because she was telling me this with some conviction didn’t mean I was buying it. She said she understood and asked I get online and check my account, that I should not see the faded automatic payments set up on my page. I did and she was in fact correct, it was gone.

I asked her to explain what it was and she said that the tech support people couldn’t figure out exactly what was happening but they figured it was a coding error of some sort.

I was pleased that I finally was proven right but I was still out $210.00 in overdraw fees and was told that I was borderline insane by “Customer Service”.

Likewise, I was treated very rudely by the people involved save that last lady who finally helped me. She even offered to return the $392.84 so I could make a payment that fit my budget but by that time I was so shell shocked that I just wanted it over, I told her to leave it alone.

I was later offered a chance to rate my Customer Service experience with Brooks Brothers, Citi Bank which I most happily took rating them as the lowest form of retail life and that I would highly recommend that customers avoid them.

Two days later I received an email from a lady named Laura J Necessary saying she wanted to call me to discuss my issue and only needed to be told when she might be able to call me. I gave her times to call and about a day later, she called earlier than I had listed and as a result I missed her call as I was at a medical appointment.

Since then, I have returned her call four to five times a day for an entire week leaving messages for her and have yet to get a call back or find her at her desk.

Its pretty clear that this is standard operating procedure for Brooks Brothers-Citi Cards. Offering a remedy for a problem and then when called on it, ignore the customer with the issue.

My only question is why would a major company in retail do something so stupid. They stand to lose a lot of trade if the customer is lucid enough to know that reports can be filed to warn other would be customers which is what I have been doing. I have been in touch with BBB, Department of Consumer Affairs in Connecticut and now the Rip Off Report. I will tell everyone who will listen including Santa Claus if he happens to be interested. Either way, if you are dealing with these people, do not make payments on line! Do not offer to have them take payments automatically and do not give them your banking information because if you do, they will go in like a thief in the night and clean you out! To Brooks Brothers-Citi Cards, no need to contact me, I am doing fine with venue such as this one