The Thursday before we left for Bali, I dropped off a new signed copy of our US W9 (or 4, now I forget! – see Citibank Part 3) to the City Hall branch in Singapore. They still had not fully activated our account. The customer service representative I dealt with was not even there. I learned that all Citibank employees go to the main branch first thing in the morning for some training, probably about paper forms, before they go to the local branches. Therefore I left the signed copy with a note: “If this is not working by Monday, I will be in to close the account and withdraw all funds”.
We left for Bali on Friday and honestly I did not think nor care about Citibank for the weekend! Since we decided to stay a day longer on vacation, I also did not check my ATM card on Monday. Tuesday I did logon but could not do some of the online banking! Stupid Citibank! How long does this take?
I did not wander over to Citibank until Wednesday, September 26th, to test the ATM card. In my head I was rehearsing my speech for closing the account. “Give me my check now. I want to go to UOB and deposit my money there!” I know, not very sarcastic, bombastic, fantastic, or whichever modifier I need to make a stronger point. At this point, I was just plain tired.
I used my ATM card to access the account (which I could always do) but this time…it spit out money! Yes, Citibank finally allowed me access to our funds after 25 days. Not bad. I mean think about it. If we all had to wait 25 days to get any of our deposited funds, how happy the credit card companies would be? They could rake in some dough (if you did not pay on time. Maybe you need 50 days to do so). Or alternatively, how much we would have in savings after living off PB&J for 3 weeks. This was a ridiculous experience with a bank that has been in Singapore since 1902. Yes, over a 110 years of banking excellence still led to a bunch of incorrect signatures on forms and almost 4 weeks to access our funds. Now it seemed too much trouble to cancel out of principle alone. I let it go. Breathe out.
As YAW said in her recent FB posting, maybe Citibank SIngapore can use the interest they earned off holding our money to once again buy electronic signature pads. That would make life easier for the next banking customer.