Address changes and Citibank

40 days.

It's been 40 days since I gave in an address change request to Citibank and it's still not been done. Actually, it was done, and Citibank messed it up again. So, my day counter is back in action again.

Citibank discourages you from going to their office. Almost all the transactions have to be done either by phone or online. They discourage you by charging you if you go to a bank for a transaction. Almost everything is electronic.

How do you change your address then?

I said almost! You write a good ol' fashioned letter. And, since their head-office is in Chennai, you either drop it off in their Bangalore office (MG road) or you mail it to them in Chennai.

They lost a letter of mine that I dropped off.

Also, they don't do changes in their Bangalore office. They send it to Chennai. So what needs to take less than a day takes about four to five working days. Why? Because I guess that the "system" (or database) is in Chennai. Wow, all this from a global bank.

You can transfer funds from your accounts, you can order demand drafts, you can pay anyone, you can do almost anything online from your Citibank account, but you can't change your address. Apparently, your money is not as well guarded as your address.

Your account is guarded by a telephone PIN, an ATM PIN, and an Internet Banking PIN. I wonder if they'll have an address change PIN soon. It'd make things less complicated than this for sure.