What do Wachovia customers need to do now that Citigroup owns your ass? Absolutely nothing. You can do all your online and offline banking just like nothing happened. No temporarily held funds, no chained and locked bank branches. Everything is the same. Even your bank’s regulator remains the Office of the Comptroller of Currency. Down the road there will likely be a few alterations, most of them cosmetic. Read our post “Insiders: Probable 1-Year Timeline For Customers In WaMu To Chase Transfer” for some of the changes you can expect.
(Photo: epicharmus)







Anyone have problems with Wachovia online banking today? A friend downloads her bank register into Quicken on a periodic basis, and when doing so today she found that all her ‘old’ transactions were no longer included in the download. They still show in the web interface, just not in the download.
@JasonR:
Couldn’t tell you. Wachovia charged $7 per month for the “privelege” of downloading into Quicken, so I quickly canceled that, and instead just download from the web and import it into quicken.
I’m glad to see Wachovia gone, they’re the only bank I had that actually CHARGED you to download your transactions into Quicken.
Good Riddance.
(I already have an account at Citibank, and they do NOT charge to download into Quicken)
@Dooley: Really? $7??
I download statements from it all the time in different formats (i experiment a lot) and it has never charged me anything in last 6 months i have been doing that. I only have a free “students” checking account though. You think thats what i different?
I’ve done some online stuff and no problems. I used the browser and the program PageOnce (which works like quicken I believe).
Thanks for the post, Ben!
First Federal – First Union – Wachovia – Citibank.
Damn, my bank account gets around, the whore.
@silver-bolt: Heh, I was thinking the same thing, although I only go back to the First Union days.
@Shadowman615: First Federal was the local bank that First Union bought out.
@silver-bolt: Ahhh, I remember the old First Union days. I think I still have my old First Union ATM card. Just serves as a reminder.
@silver-bolt: Here in Virginia it was: 1stAmerican – First Union – Wachovia – Citibank
@silver-bolt: BancFlorida -> First Union -> Wachovia -> Citi here.
@silver-bolt: I’ve been with them since it was Union Trust! Then First Union… Then Wachovia… now Citi… I guess I’m getting old.
I’ll be moving my money just because I have NO desire to be a Citi customer.
@methamp:
+1 to that. I dont want to be a Citi Customer at all.. Local Credit union is looking nice.
@methamp: yeah, same here – I worked for Citigroup, and the employees who had accounts with the bank were always running into problems that were *painfully* stupid – looking at making that move to USAA once and for all.
Same here. I was a Citi customer before I switched to Wachovia mainly because I hated the poor service and lame excuses at Citi. What a shame I actually liked Wachovia.
Both my banks crashed within a week of each other. I must be bad luck….. : (
@Mfalconieri: I know, right!
where is the citibank borg tractoring the enterprise wachovia?!
Hey, for all you Philadelphians out there, do you think the Wachovia Center going to be the Citibank Center now? I mean the Wachovia Spectrum doesn’t matter since it’s gonna be torn down.
@11hawkinst:
I would imagine it will be Citi Center (like Citi Field). This Devils fan will be referring to it as the Shitty Center.
This is interesting. My student loan is through Wachovia. My school’s finance office would only let me do a loan through Wachovia or some other Bank that is not Citi, and I chose Wachovia (mainly because the name sounded cool, I’m lame, I know), makes me wonder if anything will happen there…
@Zeniq: Yeah my student loans are through Wachovia, too.
My only concern is that they will eventually change my routing number and my automatic student loan payments will get screwed up. It’s probably a silly concern but it’s mine, dammit.
@tasselhoff76: It’s a very legitimate concern, since you’ll have to keep an eye on it to make sure they don’t charge more money, screw your credit rating, etc…
I’m pretty sure as part of the process, Wachovia customers will be converted to Mets fans in order to show support for the citi field
Does anyone know what Citi’s private banking division’s like? Or what typically happens to private banking customers (and their reps) in these merges?
@FLConsumer: Citi’s private banking is pretty good. E.g. I’ve had a good experience working with them to wire a large amount of money to buy my house. There is sometimes a bit of confusion when I need to talk to other portions of Citi though. Don’t know about mergers.
Are they required to notify you prior to changing your routing number, so those automatic deductions aren’t messed up, resulting in late bills?
In my experience, the old routing numbers/account numbers carry over for quite some time. I forgot to change them during a buy out 4 years ago and they worked for about a year (which is when I realized I really needed to update them).
@schiff: Good to know, thanks.
I’m almost of out checks and was about to order new ones for my Wachovia account. Given that I rarely write checks a box usually last me about 5+ years. Should I hold off on getting new checks until this merger with Citi takes place so I don’t have to replace them any time soon after the routing number changes?