Sunday, February 21, 2010

The Tattered CitiBank Umbrella



Gremlin #1: BUY! BUY! BUY!
Gremlin #2: SELL! SELL! SELL!
Brain Gremlin: Well, it's rather brutal here. Right now we are advising all our clients to put everything they've got into canned food and shotguns.


Bank run.

So Citi uses the umbrella for a corporate logo, eh?



Citigroup Warns Customers It May Refuse To Allow Withdrawals

John Carney | Feb. 19, 2010, 2:57 PM

The image of banks locking their doors to keep customers from making withdrawals during a bank run is what immediately came to mind when we heard that Citigroup was telling customers it has the right to prevent any withdrawals from checking accounts for seven days.

"Effective April 1, 2010, we reserve the right to require (7) days advance notice before permitting a withdrawal from all checking accounts. While we do not currently exercise this right and have not exercised it in the past, we are required by law to notify you of this change," Citigroup said on statements received by customers all over the country.

What's going on? It seems that this is something of an error. The seven day notice policy only applies to customers in Texas, Ira Stoll reports at The Future of Capitalism. It was accidentally included on customer statements nationwide.

"Whatever the explanation, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in Citi," Stoll writes. "But it's hard to believe a bank would be sending out a notice like that on its statements."


The reality is more like this don't you think?



Maybe Citi's customers ought to listen to the Brain Gremlin.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like weather they've applied that "option" or not, CitiBank WILL do it sometime in the near future.
Also sounds like it's time to find a NEW bank (or CREDIT UNION!!), a little closer to home, a little more local, and NOT beholding to the Big Gub'ment TARP.

You HAVE been WARNED. Accidently or on purpose, makes no difference. And your pic is right on -- canned goods and shotguns. Hard durable goods will become the interim currency, until we can get back on silver and gold.

B Woodman
III-per

jon said...

i started to comment on the citibeast, but it outgrew the 4096 character limit. must be the coffee.

Toastrider said...

Yeaaaaah.

Excuse me, I think I better go get some more 9mm ammo.

Happy D said...

I was just going to blast into the vault anyway.

Brain Gremlin gave me the best financial advice I ever got. Saved my portfolio.
I highly recommend his financial services. His down to earth practicality are unmatched.

For example. "Now, bear in mind, none of us has been in New York before. There are the Broadway shows - we'll have to find out how to get tickets. There's also a lot of street crime, but I believe we can watch that for free. We want the essentials. Dinettes. Complete bedroom groups. Convenient credit, even though we've been turned down in the past."

See the original interview; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byW49j2YSjE&feature=related

If only he had been in charge of the fed we may have avoided this mess.

Anonymous said...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=ax3yON_uNe7I&pos=11