Citibank India wants credit card, bank account numbers to stop marketing emails

[slowdown]

Citibank is one of the worst banks I've dealt with.

Once, one of their affiliate's employees offered me a Credit Card for free and said "it had no strings attached" and I don't need to do anything to keep it alive. Thought it sounded too good to be true, I bit the bullet and signed up, right on the spot, their affiliate clothing store. Before I was about to submit my documents, it was then I happened to meet a friend by chance and he told me that I would need to purchase a minimum X amount each year mandatorily through the "free" card, failing which I would be levied drastic charges.

Shocked, I asked the affiliate's employee if it was true and he confirmed the same. I politely declined, got my papers from him, and scored the entire application paper off diagonally so that no sane company would accept it as a valid application.

However, the very next day, I get a call from one of Citibank's employees asking me to submit a photograph so that he could forward the application. I was shocked and I asked him how it was even possible to submit a scored out application. Even though I scored off the application, I hadn't scored off my other copies of proof (Driving license, etc). So the rep had cleverly filled out a fresh form just like I would have and even signed where I should have (!) and forwarded the application to the card processing department. I know this because the rep who called told me that the only thing he needed was a passport size photograph and everything else was pucca.

Shocked, I told him that I don't need the card and asked him to stop bugging me. I got routine calls from the same rep for about 3 days and also continuous text messages asking me to submit just the photograph. Heck he would have come to even my house (the address was on the proof I submitted) , he was THAT desperate.

It was then I decided that I would never ever deal with a shady company like Citibank, ever again.

So, I'm not surprised that they are actually so intrusive to even have you unsubscribe from their site. This bank is full of shit.

[quantumpotato_]

Forging your signature is illegal!

[jey]

Which country was this in? India?

[davideous]

This is illegal in the United States under the CAN-SPAM law

From: http://www.business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-com...

"You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honoring an opt-out request"

(My company provides email delivery software and consulting.)

[edit for typo]

[sidcool]

The link posted here redirects to a co.in domain. It's Citibank India. I have sent them a message on facebook, in an attempt to bring this to their attention.

[columbo]

This opens up an interesting phish attack. Spam users with seemingly innocent Citibank marketing emails several times a day until they get fed-up and try to unsubscribe using their credit card.

[wrath]

This is a phishing attack waiting to happen! I never worked at a bank but I'm assuming (maybe I shouldn't) that there are a few people working there that know a thing or two about security. I doubt that any person who claims to be a "security expert" would have let this go by, but I always seemed to be proven wrong. Take for example TDBank in Canada who has a 80's password policy:

Passwords must:

- be 5 to 8 characters in length

- not contain spaces or special characters (e.g. #, &, @)

Poor customers if TD ever gets their password database stolen.

[nodata]

Or the classic bank telephones you and asks to verify your identity by answering your secret questions and answers. facepalm

[gardarh]

They might be running AS/400 as their backend systems, I recently saw a terminal to one of those in a bank and to my shocking surprise the passwords were not even encrypted on that system.

I imagine that passwords are kept in the same database as transactions so I'm not sure the passwords would be the primary concern in the case of a break in.

[chrismcb]

Poor password rules are a red flag. If their password code is this bad, how bad is the rest of their code?

[itchitawa]

My bank requires a 4 character password with no letters or special characters! Oh wait, a PIN doesn't count?

[raverbashing]

How about you mark their marketing emails as spam and let them deal with the consequences of that?

[wavefunction]

This. Poison their IP blocks in the SPAM RBL so they get the message.

[agotterer]

I closed my citibank account a number of years ago, including my online access. To this day they still send me marketing emails. The only way to unsubscribe is to login to your account and change your preferences. Doesn't seem like there's anything customer service can do about it either. It now is spam and there's no way to unsubscribe, so it gets marked as such.

[manas2004]

How many spam reports does it typically take to affect IP reputation?

[mtkd]

Getting increasingly harder to unsubscribe.

- Some big vendors (Dell, HP?) don't seem to use unified opt-out lists or they use agencies that don't share unsubscribes

- Unsub pages with complicated unsub process (double-negative questions, button size tricks e.g. 'submit' is small and 'continue' is large)

- Unsub pages requiring input of your email address on a form without the email address pre-populated (so you have to go back and lookup which address received the email)

- 2 stage unsub process, so you think you've submitted but it's really a page saying 'are you sure?' in small text with small submit

A single-click / no interaction unsubscribe is the exception now.

[sergiotapia]

My experience has been the opposite or maybe it's just something unique to Outlook.com

They have a small button you can click to Unsubscribe beneath every marketing email. And they pop up a message saying "We'll ask them to stop. In the meantime we'll automatically move everything from this sender/company to junk."

Works really well and it's 1 click.

[ZoFreX]

There are two modes of marketing mail I've seen increase massively over the last year or two (note: completely subjective 'study' based on my own inbox):

1) "Screw your choices" spam - despite figuring out the Mensa-challenge-esque puzzle of which checkboxes to check or uncheck, when signing up for a new account the company opts you in to marketing emails anyway.

2) "Blast from the past" - a I used to use years ago has decided to add every single email address they've ever seen to their mailing list, and I'm suddenly seeing emails from them. To me this looks a lot like the desperate throes of a dying company - I believe Yahoo pulled this at some point this year. Amusing variation: My sole contact with one company was a complaint email, which they did not reply to. Two years later they started sending me marketing emails. No, thank you.

When it comes to unsubscribing there's another trick I've seen on the rise, other than the ones you already listed: An unsubscribe process that takes weeks. The page says something like "You will be unsubscribed within 28 days" and you keep getting spam in the meantime. I believe at least some of Yahoo's services do this, too? There are two main variations for this one: companies that do actually remove you after 28 days, and companies that don't (I assume it's just a distraction tactic and they hope you'll forget).

[erichurkman]

I particularly like the unsubscribe pages that have broken email validation. Sign up for a service with [email protected] just fine, but the unsubscribe page won't accept the '+'.

Or the ones that require you to sign in update your spam preferences.

Ugh.

[coofluence]

There is a massive love in India for documents. To get any service in private or public sector, you need ID proofs and address proofs. Even to browse internet at a "net cafe", you need to produce ID proof! That's so because authorities can catch (and some side cash) you if you were browsing anything against what they think the law is.

The problem is that there is massive trust deficit. Public too is keen to cheat whenever a loophole exists due to simplified procedures. That invites even harsher regulation and the cycle of submitting 10 documents where 1 would be suffice continues. There are endless certificates and NOCs (no-objection certifcates) required to operate in India: Aadhar citizen number, PAN number, TAN number, Service Tax number, Excise registration, LBT registration, Domicile, 7/12 extracts, 20 year old vouchers for LPG gas cylinders, nationality...and so it goes. Also, there is very little belief about who you are and where you live. So for everything an address proof is required apart from an ID.

Any wonder that there are no ground-level start-up stories from India. All that we can do is morph into HSFC (Human Services for Cheap) model to serve the rich western countries who want to off-load their guilt of wanting modern 'e-slaves' in the post-industrial world but not being able to fund their liabilities.

[arnabc]

I liked this JS function one of the JS files in that page, specially the name of the cookie "Gabbar":

  function fun() {
    var new_dte= new Date(2005,1,1);
    setCookie("Gabbar","#!#0",new_dte);
    setCookie("hitsscore",hitsscore+"~",new_dte);
  }

[deepakkapoor]

Haha. Maybe Jai and Viru methods are doing server side processing :)

[jlawer]

A few people have mentioned this but if your using a web based email service, then simple mark the email as spam. This will cause an Abuse Feedback Report to be sent to citibank, which should cause their server to automatically unsubscribe you from the email stream.

If your sending bulk email, your not going to be getting delivery unless your process these messages from the large web mail providers.

I am actually surprised that they aren't required by law to have either a 1 click unsubscribe or at the very worst, require you to enter your email address into the form and click a button. This is the way that the us CANSPAM act and the australian spam act work.

[anilshanbhag]

In India, if you want to use your credit/debit card online you need to enter a pin/password. Hence it is highly unlikely you can do anything with that info. This however is still scary !

[chaz]

To be ever so slightly more fair to Citibank, this is the page after you've already said you have a relationship with them. This is where you choose: http://www.online.citibank.co.in/customerservice/DND.htm. The other option asks for your email and phone number. Still, poorly designed and surprised it's considered to be in compliance. Phone and email inputs should be enough.

[manas2004]

The unsubscribe link in the marketing email took me to this page directly. The marketing email was targeted to existing customers.

[coloncapitald]

This is surprising given that the bank IVR and reps keep saying that the bank will never ask you for your personal information.

[paragarora]

This forms opens up when you select existing customers. Upon clicking not existing customers, it asks only email and phone.

[donniezazen]

I am not surprised most of the banking websites in India, seems like, designed for IE in 90s. There are pop-ups, options after options, acronyms and more acronyms, and did I mention Verified by Visa thing.

[chinmay-raval]

Looks like a UI bug, credit card number is mandatory only if you want relationship dropdown value as credit card.

[arunc]

Anything is possible in Indian market.

[FlyingCocoon]

What did RBI said?

[jessaustin]

You "fail to see the problem" with a financial institution encouraging insecure handling of CC and acct details? I hope that you don't work for a bank, but somehow I suspect you do.

EDIT: I'll take your deletion as confirmation that you do work for a bank.

[nathancahill]

I don't think that it's something you know, (the last 4 of your credit card or social security are used for that).

My guess is that they have different email campaigns tied to your bank account, credit card or investment account, etc. This is probably the only way to make sure you don't get any emails from that account.

[pokesmot]

You can't be serious, like every major site out there will send you an email link with a "password" unique to that user/email that will one-click opt-out. I believe this is due to US regulation, but it's clearly technically implementable and safe.

[dec0dedab0de]

I don't understand the issue, from the banks perspective those are basically your username. It's not like they need to trick you into giving them a number they issued you.

EDIT: The only problem I can think of is that it may encourage users to be loose with their info, and therefore be more susceptible to phishing attacks.

[jessaustin]

The typical customer got to the linked page by clicking a link in an email. After all, the use case is the customer not wanting the damned marketing spam. A financial institution should not be training its customers to enter account details into pages they got emailed to them.

I'm sure some customers would consider themselves sophisticated enough to "know" this is a "real" Citi page, but if they were actually sophisticated they wouldn't touch this with a ten-foot pole.

[sp332]

What if a customer put in the wrong email address, and the person getting the marketing emails doesn't have any account number with the bank?

[mikeash]

Your edit is correct, but "the only problem" implies (at least to me) that it's not important, while it's kind of like saying "the only problem with getting shot in the head is that your brain gets smashed into a zillion pieces".