Citi credit card hardship programs.

Citibank, which is officially part of an international banking conglomerate called Citigroup, offers consumers a credit card hardship program and a variety of ways to get assistance. Millions of Americans are trying to get out of credit card debt, and Citi is assisting select customers with paying their debt. Below are some real life examples of how Americans are receiving assistance. Citi has provided help to thousands of consumers across the country. Some of the assistance they provide from their hardship program includes competitive debt consolidation loans, waved fees, temporary forbearance, debt settlements, matching payments, reduced interest rates, and more.

How to get help from Citi credit card hardship programs

Citi offers a variety of assistance. While they can be difficult to work with, and it takes repeated calls and transfers to find the correct people, if you persevere you can get help. Here is what they can offer and the phone numbers to call:

1. They will waive late fees and charges for the length of the program.

2. Citi will agree to begin reporting your monthly payments as on time so you start immediately improving your credit ratings.

3. The first payment on your plan may be slightly higher, but it will go lower.

4. They will also offer a match payment hardship program to select customers that you may or may not be eligible for. There are examples of them agreeing to match a first payment of up to $600. The reason they do this is to encourage the consumer to make a good large first payment. They may even make this available for more than one month, but you need to ask for it.

5. Your payments on the Citi hardship program may be as low as 1.5% of the balance to begin with.

Call 1-800-388-2200 or 1-888-579-9239 for more information on the Citi credit card hardship program.

 

 

 

Additional tips

Some of the key rules on dealing with the Citi hardship department.

• Be sure to call the right number.
• You need to keep asking because they tend to say no a lot, so you may need to place multiple phone calls and keep escalating the issue.
• If they say no to your request, hang up the hang up the phone and try calling again...try someone else.
• No matter what they may say, if you keep trying they will give you 0% APR for five years. To determine your monthly payment for this deal, just divide the total amount owed on your debt by 60 months and that gives you the monthly payment.
• After each year that goes by, you need to call them to renew the deal.
• If you miss just one monthly payment, the credit card hardship deal is canceled.

 

 

Examples of how people are receiving assistance

• One customer owed $25,000 on their card. They became about 120 days late on their payment, and called Citi to settle their debt or learn about a hardship program.
  
  There minimum payment was about $450 per month when they were paying on time. After calling them, speaking to multiple people, Citibank ended up offering a 0% interest for 12 months, and their new monthly payments would be just $258 per month.
   
• Another customer called, and the customer service rep did not offer a great deal, but alluded to a monthly “cycle” of deals of some sorts, and hinted that it is possible to get a better deal at a different time. So two days later, they called back, and after a few requests, the person was offered a deal at 0% interest.
   
• Another example. Citi provided a customer a hardship program that reduced their APR to 5% and required them to pay $350 per month on a $20,000+ debt. They also reported it to the credit agencies as "paid as agreed", therefore not lowering their credit scores.
   
• Once customer had his interest rates increased to over 20%. He called Citibank to state his case and plead for lower interest rates. Both companies agreed to lower his interest rate to 6 percent rate, but only if he closed the credit card account. He did not accept right away, and then shortly after, a different Citi representative called him to offer a zero percent interest rate on his cards for 12 months, but he did have to close the account.