CitiBank’s “All-Electronic” Program Sure Involves a lot of Paper

Written by nickel - 15 Comments

Awhile back my wife and switched our Citi Driver’s Edge and Dividend Platinum cards over to their “All-Electronic” program, such that we now receive our bills online. So why is it that Citi feels the need to mail us each a letter every single month telling us when our statement is available online?

Here’s a snippet of the text from the letter:

Your Citibank statement is now available at http://www.citicards.com/. This notification is part of the All-Electronic Program you enrolled in to receive your statements online only instead of in the mail.

So tell me… How exactly is that all electronic?

Published on May 11th, 2007 - 15 Comments
Filed under: Credit Cards
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Comments (scroll down to add your own):

Someone at Citibank has a wicked sense of humor!
Comment by Chris — May 11th 2007 @ 9:47 am
These guys are fools… I keep getting these stupid letters too.
Comment by jim — May 11th 2007 @ 9:52 am
Yeah! I noticed the same thing on my accounts.
Comment by Yure — May 11th 2007 @ 9:53 am
I bet this is the result of some corporate thinkheads (they never act alone) being concerned that the customer would be concerned about not receiving their monthly statement in the mail because the customer either forgot or too dumb to realise they have all-electronic accounts.

These customers would be calling the customer support lines which would have been more expensive for banks than simply mailing them notification letters with snail mail and real paper.

Sad, really.
Comment by Corporate Thinking — May 11th 2007 @ 10:13 am
I’m willing to be that it’s a cover-your-ass move to avoid problems with statement notifications being flagged as spam. But then it doesn’t really have the desired effect, which is minimizing mailing costs (and as a side benefit, reducing paper waste). Sure, it costs less to mail a single page than an entire statement, but that’s just a fractional gain.

Comment by nickel — May 11th 2007 @ 11:01 am
I don’t get any letter since I signed up for online statements. However, about every week I get the handy, dandy convenience checks. Good thing I bought a shredder.
Comment by Gigi — May 11th 2007 @ 1:17 pm
I have not gotten those letters, but I’ve been enrolled in online statements for a really really long time (few years). But I do get those annoying convenience checks far more often then I care about.
Comment by Amber — May 11th 2007 @ 1:43 pm
That’s incredibly silly. When I got my credit union to stop mailing my statements, they sent me an email every month letting me know when the statement was available.
Comment by Anitra — May 11th 2007 @ 4:59 pm
I hate to say it, but Citibank just doesn’t seem that bright to me. I’ll be leaving them most likely when my intro offer is up in December.
Comment by Tom — May 12th 2007 @ 12:37 am
Yeah, I switched a long time ago. It was about 6 months before they stopped sending those letters. But, like Gigi said, I still get a few metric tons of convenience checks.
Comment by Winner — May 12th 2007 @ 5:21 pm
a quick call to customer service in india or kentucky or wherever you end up should stop both the convenience checks and the paper mail.
Comment by g. — May 12th 2007 @ 5:26 pm
As an insider, the snail mail is indeed being sent because there is a problem with the delivery of the statement notification by email. If you contact the technical support number on their webpage, they will be able to tell if your statements are being returned as undeliverable and to provide assistance in getting your email program to recognize any email that is being sent by them. Also, a quick call can also stop any convenience checks or promotional offers from being sent. through USMail.
Comment by Boozer — May 12th 2007 @ 7:49 pm
I’m an insider as well. At the end of 2006, they sent out a memo about a intranet website we could visit to help post ideas on ways to save money. Since I have 2 CitiCards, I too get the “your statement is ready online” letter twice a month. I proposed that maybe they should stop sending out these letters if they really wanted to lower expenses. I know it may not be a lot but gotta start somewhere. I know my email address with them is up to date because I get other mail through it.
Comment by R — May 13th 2007 @ 2:24 am
I do see the security reason for sending a paper statement to confirm that yes, you don’t want paper statements any more, but sometimes, you have to wonder.
Comment by Ben parker — Jul 12th 2007 @ 3:00 am
Right said winner,the same thing happened to me.
Comment by Paul anderson — Jul 16th 2007 @ 12:23 am