Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Beware of fraud calls from Citibank

I got a call from a lady saying she is a Citibank employee(Shyla) and whether I am interested in Citibank life time credit card. I was getting these calls many times and every time, I told them I am not interested. This time, she told me that they are giving credit card and DVD player as diwali gift and they want to know my address. I talked to many people regarding this, and they said "Go on and get it. Later you can cancel the card". I thought, it might be possible as I have seen some "get a watch by applying for credit card" in Citibank online site. So, I said "Yes". Now, recently, I got a courier for Citibank credit card and I didn't get the gift that she promised!!. I called her up (Fortunately, I had her number with me) and asked her regarding this. She said " It is in pending status. I will let you know after checking why it is in pending status". I still thought she is telling truth. Next day, when I called her up, now she started acting. She said "It is a wrong number. She is not the one whom I called". I thought "May be, her number might have changed. (Though it is less probable as I just spoke to her one day before)". I made a call to her thru my friend and confirmed her number hasn't changed. Now, I called up Citibank and told them this is what happened. Finally, it took so much time for me to cancel this card.

Moral of the story: Beware of such fraud calls rather wasting time and money later.

2 comments:

lallopallo said...

It's interesting to note that the worst form of telemarketing has reached indian shores too. Telemarketing started, in it's most innocuous form , way back in late 60's in the US and later it arrived in canada and western europe. It's the biggest nuisance of modern times in the western world. On an average, I receive atleast 2-3 telemarketing calls per day.
But,Iam skeptical about it's future in India. Reason being indians can be really rude to the callers and also the fact that indians are generally too smart to fall prey to various promotions and discounts offered by telemarketers.
It's good that you figured out the fraud.
Take it easy

Anonymous said...

Hmm.. you fell for a DVD player? funny.. who would give a DVD player free? :)