Costco’s transition from American Express to Citibank occurred on June 20th. Not only did Costco stop accepting American Express, but the Costco Amex Rewards cards stopped functioning all together. I personally did not find the transition smooth, as in my opinion Costco did not do a good job of providing timely information to customers regarding what was going to happen to their account and when. But when June 20th came, the transition was was complete, with no more hiccups to deal with. I only wish that was true.
I could have missed my first payment to Citibank due to incorrect information.
A few weeks ago I received a letter in the mail labeled as important information regarding my Costco account. It repeated information regarding the transition, the closing of my Costco American Express Account, and how the balance would be treated. It stated the following:
- The balance from Costco American Express accounts would be transferred to a new Citibank account
- If a final bill is received from American Express, a payment should be made to them
- When a bill is received from Citibank, a payment should be made to them.
About the same time, I received a statement from my American Express account for a small balance we had outstanding. Following the directions provided to me, the day the payment was due I attempted to log into my American Express account to make the payment. However, instead of my account information I received a screen stating that my account had been transferred to Citibank, and to direct any questions I had regarding my account to them.
I then signed onto my Costco Citibank account which I had already set up. It showed the balance that had been transitioned, but it did not show a due date for my payment or that a payment was due at all.
I couldn’t access my American Express Account, and my Citibank Account did not show a payment due.
I had to make some phone calls to resolve the situation. First, I called American Express and explained the situation. They told me to disregard the statement I received in the mail as they were no longer servicing the accounts from Costco. I would have to direct all my questions to Citibank. After waiting on hold for about 10 minutes with Citibank, their representative confirmed what I had been told by American Express. When I asked why my Citibank account listed no payment yet due, I was told that information only showed up on the primary card holder’s account (which in this case is actually my wife). Even though I was on the account, they could not tell me if a payment was due, when my payment due date was, or the amount due. All of that could only be done by the primary account holder, until my wife personally authorized me to that information.
After calling my wife and setting up a new online account using her card number, I could see the amount due and the due date.
Let’s review the details in the latest debacle that is the Costo Amex to Citibank transition:
- I received instructions on how to handle my payments, but could not follow them and was told to disregard them.
- I never received a statement of any kind from Citibank for my first payment.
- I could not see the payment information for my Citibank account because I’m the secondary card holder. However, none of this was communicated to me.
The Costco transition from Amex to Citibank has been a complete disaster. I wonder how many people sent payments to Amex even though they no longer service the account. I wonder how many people missed their first payment to Citibank. I wonder how many people got slapped with late fees. Just one more reason to pay off the balance and cut up the card.
Sounds like a pain I’ve heard of some people having problems with the transition. With that big of a change in such a big company, stuff like that is inevitable.
Luckily i didn’t have to go through with that since I really didn’t use my Costco AMEX card. 1% cash back doesn’t really excite me. The change to Visa is nice because the new Costco card has 2% cash back at Costco and 4% on gas. Plus there are many other cards that are now allowing cash back to be earned at Costco.
The costco AMEX card always had other benefits, Syed – 1% for most things, 2% off for travel and restaurants I think and I got 4% for gas because I had a business account. But…glad you like the new Visa card – hope you earn a ton of rewards without overspending!
We already had a Citi Credit card and an online account that had everything set up for automatic bill pay. When we configured everything with the Costco card, it found the existing account and linked it, so we didn’t even have to add any bank information or anything. That was pretty lucky for us, as I’ve heard a lot of these other types of stories that hadn’t gone so smooth.
I’m glad everything worked out well for you, Money Beagle…I had heard different people had different levels of success.
I received and activated the Costco/citi card two weeks ago. Today, I received the first statement from citi. It says past due and $34.53 for past due interest. I am not sure why I have past due interest on the first statement.
Actually, I have set up automatic pay from my back account with Amex. I believed citi inherits it and payment was automatically made because Costco has said they transfer my information from Amex to citi automatically. However, it was not. Actually, the payment was not withdrawn from my account automatically. I found it after coming back from business trip today.
During the transition to citi, I was not able to access Amex online account because my account seems to be deactivated by Amex. Also, I never got a statement from Amex or citi until today. I called citi, waiting for someone picking my call for 40 minutes, explaining it, the citi customer service told me I had to pay including past due fee first. She said otherwise they will send me the next statement will have the past due fee. So, I made full amount of payment.
According to them, they “might be” able to make adjustment for past due fee later, which I do not believe. Anyway, If there is no adjustment made for past due, $34.53, on the following statement, I am going to cancel Costco/citi card. I do not care about past due fee adjustment, but I cannot accept so much mess with this transition, which might have damaged my credit score because of THEM.
Actually, I liked Costco/Amex card. Amex is not accepted by some restaurants or retails stores because of their high transaction fee on store side. However, they immediately called me when they see unusual credit card use (actually, they have notified two fraud uses once and “corrected” those fraud use without annoying me). If it were Amex, they would have said they “will” make adjustment for past due fee instead of “might be able to”.
I would keep pushing for the adjustment for the past due interest……they’ve had a lot of issues with this transition, and they know it. I’m surprised they didn’t offer to have it rescinded.
Just got fees/interests charged because I missed my last American Express payment, somehow similar situation as the one described here: my payment was scheduled with auto-pay on the American Express, and since I got the statement from them at the beginning of June I was not worried it would be paid. I was on a two weeks trip at the end of June, without my new Citi card (never used it, never activated my online account), and now that I’m back I see some charges.
Citi Customer service thinks everything’s fine…
Like I said….this is a huge mess. Hope you get everything ironed out, M A…….thanks for sharing your experience.
I got charged a late fee of $27 which was reversed without any action from me. But they have added an interest payment of $3.26 which I am disputing. My argument was “I never received a statement of any kind from Citibank for my first payment.” The Citibank customer service rep didn’t seem to understand what I was saying and kept insisting that my payment is 5 days past due. She finally said she will log a complaint and it might take 5-7 days before they take a decision on the charge.
I hope this is just a teething problem and they will iron away the issues.
Thanks for sharing your experience, whirlaway…hopefully they own up to their mistake and refund you the $3.26. It may not be a lot…but it’s just not right.