

Reaching the citi limits (citi apologizes to fabulis) - betashop
http://blog.fabulis.com/post/411819786/reaching-the-citi-limits

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pmichaud
I've seen worse apologies, but the weaselly wording still leaves a bad taste
in my mouth:

He learned of "the challenges" fabulis faced.

He apologizes for the "confusion about the status" of the account.

He regrets the "unintended message" that his employees "may have" conveyed.

That's weaselly. I know he has to cover the company's ass, but the fact is
that the "challenge" was that one or more citi employees are homophobic shits
who should be removed from a position that gives them this sort of authority
now that they've demonstrated their lack of good judgment in this area.

~~~
megaduck
I understand your anger, but this is a good, well-written apology, albeit done
in a formal style. Fabulis may or may not accept it, but it's hardly like
Citi's blowing them off.

Bill Brown (the Citibank manager) made pretty strong statements like "I assure
you that Citi is committed to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender
communities". There's not a lot of wiggle room there.

As a piece of corporate communications, it's nicely done. He openly addressed
all of the customer's concerns, without immediately throwing one of his
employees under the bus or being defensive. That's a delicate dance.

~~~
anamax
> He openly addressed all of the customer's concerns, without immediately
> throwing one of his employees under the bus or being defensive. That's a
> delicate dance.

Yes, that's a delicate dance, but it assumes that not throwing an employee
under the bus is appropriate.

If an employee does something wrong, throwing them under the bus may, or may
not, be appropriate. Citi has made its decision, but that decision doesn't
bind us. We're free to use that decision to judge Citi.

Citi is within its rights to make sure that we don't know what it did about
this employee. However, that secrecy means we're free to assume what we'd like
about what they did, or didn't, do.

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bbatsell
This is such a bullshit, CYA response. He doesn't in any way address the issue
that Citibank, or any one of its employees, can and will freeze any of its
customers' cash, for an undetermined length of time, for "noncompliance with
standard policies", with absolutely no explanation when it happens.

Until Citibank disclaims any ability to freeze funds unless under court order,
they will never have my business. What happens the next time it happens to
someone who doesn't have quite so easy access to the media or a story so
easily seen as blatantly discriminatory?

~~~
jrockway
Banking regulations force big banks to do things like this. If the OP ended up
doing something illegal with the account, Citi would be stuck with a big fine
and would be out whatever money the OP used. If they made a policy that says,
"we will not touch your account without a court order", they would be out of
business tomorrow because that is the same as, "we are knowingly going to
violate the law." Banks are financially liable to the government if they do
not police new accounts aggressively. Banking regulations in the US suck, and
this is exactly the unintended consequences that these regulations have. (If
you care, google "know your customer".)

(I work at an investment bank as a contractor and had to take a course on
detecting consumer banking fraud. Absolutely nothing to do with my line of
work, but that's how paranoid the banks are of the government.)

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megaduck
This is great news. Congratulations to Fabulis for getting this resolved, and
props to Citi for recognizing a grievous error and moving rapidly to correct
it.

I'd like to say that Citi's callout of LGBT support was smart. The gay
community and their supporters is a _massive_ group, and quite sensitive to
this kind of bullshit. We're also in activist mode right now, so being
perceived as anti-gay can be rather costly for a big business.

~~~
dandelany
While I agree with you, I don't think this situation should be considered
resolved. People have a tendency to see businesses like Citi as one person or
entity, as in, "Well, Citi screwed up royally, but then later they called back
to apologize." This isn't what happened. Three individuals who were Citi
employees engaged in discriminatory business practices, and then a fourth
individual chimed into apologize and clarify Citi's official position.

The first step in a situation like this is to hold Citi, the business,
accountable for its actions. This step is done - they have responded claiming
that this is not standard practice, and apologized for the inconvenience.

The next step should be to hold the people responsible for this accountable,
individually. Fabulis should demand a written apology and full explanation of
what transpired from each of the employees who told them the account was
frozen for "objectionable blog content." If a reasonable explanation cannot be
produced, they should be fired.

IMHO, until the individuals who engaged in these practices are held personally
accountable, Citi should not be considered "off the hook." While their
official _policy_ may be honorable, their _practices_ will not change unless
they send a strong message to their employees that this type of action is
utterly unacceptable.

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jey
Any word on which posts/content were deemed inappropriate by the compliance
officer?

All in all, this is probably a net win for this little startup. They got tons
of great free PR thanks to Citi's incompetence, and it was resolved quickly
enough that Fabulis probably suffered no real damage from the incident. A lot
more people are now familiar with their site and brand than would have been
otherwise. It'd probably behoove them to hurry up and launch their site before
the mindshare fades away with time.

------
Estragon
The real reason to avoid doing business with CitiBank is that they are
probably insolvent.

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mos1
I'm betting that this whole mess has been great for fabulis overall.

Sure, they were inconvenienced and annoyed for a day or two, but it generated
lots of publicity for their startup, not to mention lots of people linking to
their site.

At the end of the day, I think the only loser here is Citi.. at least I hope
that's the case.

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scorciapino
> In fact, this week Citi has announced the financing for the True Colors
> Residence, a housing facility for homeless GLBT youth in New York City.

Wait wat?

Citibank is sponsoring free motels?

