Saturday, November 29, 2008

Citibank making shady money off unsuspecting spenders

Clients of Citibank that have been recently using their debit cards outside of Poland are finding suspicious charge on their accounts, according to Dziennik.

The paper reports that the bank has been charging 10 percent higher than the average daily exchange rate on purchases made in U.S. dollars. The U.S. Office of Consumer Protection is investigating the case, especially in light of the fact that clients have been over-charged up to several hundreds of zloty claims the daily.

Dziennik gives the example of 50-year-old Ryszard from Poland who returned from the U.S. two weeks ago. The paper writes that he used his credit card for purchases since the Citibank card offered zero percent provisions and to use the National Bank of Poland’s (NBP) average daily exchange rate. Apparently, upon return to the country, the daily reports that he paid an exchange rate of 3.25 zloty to the dollar when the NBP rate was 2.97 zloty to the dollar. The paper claims that banks are able to change rates as they wish, but to hide the fact is simply dishonest.
Link