Citibank Savings Account

Utterly rubbish. I've never had as bad an experience with a bank. Stay well clear!!! Phone service was awful - incompetent and inflexible. The website was very user unfriendly. It took weeks to shut my account (in fact I'm still not sure they are going to be able to close it). When transferring my closing account balance THEY made the transfer for 2 pence too much, and then proceeded to charge me £25 for THEIR mistake! I then phoned to complain and they told me that I need to phone back in 2 days to see if they could give me my money back. There is no way for them to make outbound calls. Anyway, enough venting. All that you need to know is if my experience is anything to go by, you would be nuts to go anywhere near this bank.

The most appalling telephone service I have ever encountered, and I have encountered bad telephone service in the past.

I opened a flexible saver account with Citibank, only to discover a month later that I didn't need the account. Having never used it, I wanted to request account closure (I don't want an unused open account in my name).

I spent 1 hour 15 minutes on the phone (thankfully, an 0800 number) and, at the end of the call, I was back to square one.

In summary, I had to activate the account before it could be closed but, each time I was transferred in order to do this, the wait was at least 20 minutes only then to find I wasn't speaking to the correct person and they'd have to transfer me again. By the time I was 1h 15m in, I told the member of staff that I was no longer willing to hold and was told that the only way to carry out my request, without further holding, would be to set up internet banking and do it that way. So - hold for at least another 20-30 minutes (at best) or 'go and do it yourself'.

Never ever again.

I think Citibank is a good bank but there is a question mark against its exposure to risky mortgage lending. Whether it is big enough to weather the storm.