Talk:Citibank Canada

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Last year I had a kitchen installed through Home Depot Canada. They were running a promotion offering a year's interest free loan that would cover the work. Unfortunately, I neglected to pay the amount in the 12 months required (my fault) and was presented with a bill for the principal (about $17000) plus almost $5000 of interest. Luckily, I am fairly articulate and was able to talk the interest amount down to $1200. Home Depot uses Citibank's Canadian parent, Citigroup Canada to run this side of their business. Under the deal I reached, Citigroup agreed to pay half of the debt outstanding (about $2400) and Home Depot was to cover $1250. The Citigroup payment had not gone through by the next bill and the new bill was for this $2400 plus additional interest charges of over $500.

Citigroup assured me that I didn't have to pay anything more, however, I was appalled at the effective rate of interest - it is nominally 28% but this appears much higher. The company is obviously preying on the weakest of the population. I asked the Citigroup representative what she thought of such usurious rates and the ability of poor people to climb out of debt with interest rates this high. She couldn't reply to this.