Suspended Account - Customer Service Problems

My husband has had a Costco Citicard Credit Card for 20 years for his small business. Has always paid balance in full and on time each month.

Last month he had a transaction declined. Called customer service and was told his account had been closed. After at least 30 minutes on the phone, he was told his account was not closed, but it was suspended due to not returning a form in the mail to update his account.

We did not receive whatever form or letter was sent requesting updated information. We were told another form would be mailed over two weeks ago. We haven’t received that one either.

We now have about three hours of frustrating phone calls into Citibank’s customer service Number, usually ending when the call is “dropped“ after an agonizing 45-60 minutes into a discussion.

Every time we telephone the customer service line, we have to start from scratch explaining the purpose of the call. Yesterday a customer service representative argued with us - telling us that we had closed our account (we did not), then arguing that we had changed the business name (we had not), talking over the top of us, interrupting us, not being at all helpful.

Literally nothing changed on our end. We have been excellent customers for 20 years. Just one day several weeks ago we had a small transaction declined and when we called, were told it was because we didn’t return a form requesting an update of our information. A form we did not receive. According to Citibank’s customer service, they have sent two forms - which we haven’t received.

And yes, our address is correct. We receive our bills each month with no problem!

We have asked if Citibank can email us the form. They say no. Can they fax us the form. They say no. We have never used online banking, so we created an online account and asked if we can update the information online. They say no.

Yesterday when we called in, a customer service representative said we *could* update our information over the phone and have the suspension lifted. When we got to the last question - verifying our tax ID number - the call was dropped.

When we called back in, we spoke with a different customer service representative who said we could *not* update our information over the phone and that we needed to wait one day and call back in. We asked why we needed to wait one day to call back in, and she did not have a satisfactory response.

So we called back in today, spent a total of 45 minutes on the phone - insisting that we speak with someone who would help us. After being transferred several times, we spoke with a customer service representative who asked us several questions that were *different* than the customer service representative we spoke with yesterday.

Questions like: wanting to know if our small business has any minority owners (we don’t - it is a sole proprietorship - my husband is the only owner); requesting my husband’s income, requesting the business’s annual revenue. Never requested the taxpayer ID number that the previous representative asked for. Then the call was dropped.

The bizarre thing is that nothing has changed on our end with the business operations. Excellent customers for 20 years. When we call, it seems like we were speaking with customer service reps in another country - difficult for us understand. We have to ask over and over again if they can repeat themselves because we cannot understand what they are saying.

We would like to speak to someone we can actually understand and who is committed to helping us resolve the suspension on our account.

This situation is SO frustrating. My husband is about ready to close his account. He keeps saying in 20 years he has never encountered anything like this. I am insisting we work with Citibank to resolve this, but the thought of spending hours and hours on more phone calls and waiting for a form that never arrives in the USPS mail is super frustrating.

Any suggestions would be appreciated (other than calling the customer service number on the back of the credit card).