I noticed this a few weeks ago. It's just, wrong.

For one thing it makes it very hard to copy and paste into an excel sheet. My card does not offer CSV export...piece of crap.

Wait a minute, you guys don't

ACT NOW TO GET FREE PENIS ENLARGEMENT SUPPLEMENTS

put advertising in your day to day correspondance

YOU'RE THE ONE MILLIONTH PERSON I'VE ANNOYED, CLICK HERE!

with other people too? Hmmph, how 'bout that.

What I'd like to know is what the hell can you buy at Chipotle for 5 bucks?!

Citibank has been doing this for months and months, this is hardly new. Typically, the ad is related to your purchase -- for example, I booked a flight to San Diego and the advertisement underneath was for booking a hotel. Frankly, I don't find it that annoying. No more so than Amazon.com telling me what books I'd like when I log in, anyway.

oh citibank, I'm so glad you didn't buy my bank. Go Wells Fargo!

I figured it was part of my world card's deal, but this has been going on for months.

@menty666: LOL, i liked that.

The ones i hate the most are when you go to any random website and some chick yells at you "CONGRATULATIONS! YOU JUST WON A FREE IPOD NANO!"

and you're all like... scared, very scared... lol.

I'm ok when companies such as Amazon do this, because I am at the site with the understanding that they will try to sell me something. I am ok when Gmail scans my emails and displays ads because it is a free service and they have to make their money somehow.

However, when a credit card company, whom I am paying for their service (through merchant fees and whatnot) tries to scan my personal data and inject their ads in, that's where I draw the line.

I sent them a nasty email about it when I first noticed it about 2 months ago. Needless to say, I didn't get a response and the ads are still there. And Firefox's Adblock doesn't block them either. :(

I've seen this on my account for a couple of months now.

I just ignore it. I mean, really, is it THAT big of a deal? They're a company. They're trying to make money. If you don't want the service being offered, ignore it. *shrug*

I don't necessarily "like" it but I don't have any trouble figuring out that a line that says "10% off cookies at Mrs. Fields" with no date and no cost is not actually a charge. It makes the statement hard to read, but it's pretty silly that one might think it is "account activity" of any kind.

@DeannaFlying fox: I feel the same way. They're finding new, creative ways to bring in much needed revenue without sacrificing current service. Isn't that exactly what we wanted?

the line items are blacked out, but i would find this especially wrong if i noticed it was targeted advertising. like if the bank is tracking my purchases and selling space on my statement to a similar product or company.

Probably a coincidence, but I noticed one of my Citi transactions with the attached advertisement doesn't show up on my Mint.com account. So if it turns out these ads get in the way of exporting transaction data correctly, I'll be annoyed.

@DeannaFlying fox:

I don't really have a problem with it either, although sometimes it can throw you off "I spent $100 with Sony? Oh wait, that's the ad...the $100 was actually with Best Buy", Yeah I know they are colored differently, but it can throw you a bit at times.

@DevoAlmighty: hmm a plain ole burrito with no drink?

I think if they offer a way to export the data (without the ads of course!) and the ads are clearly indicated (as it seems in this screenshot), I don't have a problem with it.

@georgi55: Ever since they redesigned their website, Citicards.com has gone from an easy to use interface to a giant piece of crap. It takes about five steps to download transactions to Quicken, you can't download specified date range, and the interface itself is almost impossible to use.

Once I hit the next point tier with my Thank You Points I'll probably be abandoning Citi, in no small part due to their new crappy web design.

@suzieq: You pay for the credit they extend to you. You don't pay a separate charge for internet access to your account, do you? If their website goes down, would you expect a refund of your merchant fees and whatnot?

They've been doing this since I got my account last June. It doesn't bother me - hell, maybe one of the deals will actually be worth something to me.

@catastrophegirl: I think it is. Like with mine, if I shop at Borders, there will be a Barnes & Noble ad underneath that transaction. But it might be a random generator thing like gmail, and it's not actually being tracked and recorded, just the ad is generated from keywords. But that's giving Citibank too much credit.

@catastrophegirl: They are-ish. They have some kind of computer program which identifies (based on keywords in the merchant name) what you were buying and offers you a similar product. For example, I recently bought some essentials at Hannaford supermarket, and the little ad below that entry is "10% off Cookies for your Valentine from Mrs. Fields" (note: my purchase did not include cookies or treats of any kind, so they're not getting that level of detail, only merchant data which they get anyway).

I have a Citi card too, and I definitely find this advertising annoying.

The Account Activity is supposed to be a place where you can audit the charges to your card and verify that everything is as it should be - THATS IT. Any kind of cross-marketing INSIDE these line items is distracting and pointless.

Mint definitely handles this situation a lot better. They still advertise to you, but all the offers are together in their own section.

That would be enough for me to stop using that card.

It's not just a problem with advertisements, but ads should NOT INTERFERE with you.

In Firefox, one can also block these ads by adding the following to userContent.css. Create the file if necessary and use a plain text editor like TextEdit or WordPad.

@-moz-document domain(accountonline.com) {
tr[class="promo-message"] {
display:none !important;
}
}

On Mac OSX, userContent.css at ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/[random].default/chrome/ On XP, it's at C:/Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[random].default\chrome\

I don't have a CitiBank account and haven't been able to test my hint. Please let me know if it doesn't work.

They've been doing this on my account for a long time...at least several months.

@idip: Yeah, those scare me, because obviously there is some small percentage of people that actually click through.

This sounds like bull. They don't make enough charging me and the vendor for every purchase, they just want even more?

I would be OK with it under two conditions - (1) opt-in and (2) I get a cut. For example, they charge B&N 8c to put the ad next to my Border's purchase, and I get 4c out of it deducted from my balance.

How about you call the company and complain?
Hell, how about we all call up and complain?

I think of this as a low tech DDoS (distributed denial of service). If enough customers call to complain the company's phone lines will be tied up so they can't get business done. This tips the balance against them doing it again as the gains from advertising is smaller than the loss from all the customers tieing up the phone lines increasing their costs.

@Yankees368:

Wow, Citibank FTL.

@suzieq: I disagree. They have more of a right to scan your transactions than Google has to scan your email, IMO. Mostly because when you use their credit, they are the ones making the transaction. They are the ones who did business with these merchants. These are their spending logs. You just get to view them so you know how much you owe them.

And their scanning isn't too efficient when you get a coupon for Drugstore.com attached to your recent balance transfer. I received an ad for Barnes and Noble attached to a recent grocery store transaction.

@tundey: Just because there isn't a separate fee for it doesn't mean you're not paying for it. Where else does the money to run the web site come from if not from their customers?

@suzieq: agreed. To unilaterally start monetizing the line items of my bill crosses a line for me as well. Maybe if it were opt in ( reduce your rate / get extra reward point ) I would be ok since it's a choice, but this is just not cool.

You know, this to me smacks of misleading information that could dupe people who do not know any better. What happens if one of the advertising links used is little more than a phishing scam? People may believe these links are valid transactions sanctioned by Citi and are "trusted" links.

I know Citi is hard up for cash, but this just reeks of potential class action litigation.

@RevRagnarok: Exactly, they just raised my interest rate. So, if you want to pepper me with ads, then drop my interest rate back down.

I see the ads on Citicards.com, but not on my Citibank Online banking site, which also has my savings and checking accounts on it. I guess you might need a banking account to access this site, so this is just a heads up to people who also might also do regular banking with Citi; if you haven't already, you can link your Citi credit card to it.

Normally, I'd bitch. But with the economy the way it is, I know everyone out there is trying to get some positive flow coming in. Even though it's online ad revenue, on my statement, I can't say I really care. If it ain't hurtin' me, it ain't hurtin' me. Simple as that.

I'll be damned if I'm ever clicking on that crap, though.

@HRHKingFridayXX: This is why I love FF and it's AdBlocker. No more freaky - click me now! Or - "Shoot this to win!"

(Who else secretly used to shoot just 1 under the amount to win - or missed intentionally?) =D Come on, someone!

@Saboth: Exactly. It can throw you a bit. It makes things harder, it confuses things, it obfuscates the actual information that the statement is supposed to contain. Put a splash page ad up between the login page and the statement page. Or put up a banner ad on top of the page or down the sides of the page. Inserting ads _between_ the lines of the actual statement is too far for the reasons stated above.

@cpt.snerd: I used to shoot to win, but all I won was noise complaints and a lot of new monitors. Maybe I was supposed to use my mouse instead of the 45.

@AshleyKeen: That's sort of like, way different. For one, Amazon is a marketplace. You sort of expect that sort of thing there. You don't when you're looking up your balance, especially as they put these ads in between your charges. It's just...stupid, if not really troublesome.

@tundey:

As a pretty frequent Chipotle goer I would say probably chips, guac and a drink of some kind.

Since it's online, Adblock Plus' sidekick "Element Hiding Helper" can cull them pretty easily - and there's no flash of the ads before the page loads completely.

I'm not sure whether Greasemonkey would affect Print Preview and Printing, but I'm pretty sure ABP:EHH will still hide them.

Anyone care to test? (I don't print much of anything these days and I don't use Citibank)

@InfiniTrent: you shouldn't have to even visit citi.com to download your transactions. my citi card is set up in Quicken 2006 to automatically access my account without having to go to the site to download the Quicken file.

Does not bother me much. I mean it is their printing cost not mine and at least there is not an added fee associated with the ads.

guys and girls we are attacking the wrong end of the problem here.

Somewhere in some boardroom some marketing guy said hey lets put advertising in the recent account activity section. Everyone threw up their hands yelling BRILLIANT and the plan was put in place. Then that marketing guy went around to some potential advertisers and said hey guys we got this super cool new method of putting advertising in the recent activity transaction screen you what a part of that? That group of people threw up their hands and screamed BRILLIANT!! Where do we sign?

So I put it to you this way. Yes citi makes some cabbage off the advertising and its annoying as hell. However who are the real culprits here? Wouldnt it be Mrs Fields and Drugstore.com? I see this kind of thing as being like the drug problem. We have always gone after the dealers and not addressed the demand. See take a dealer off the street someone else steps in.

Tackle these guys head on. Call up Mrs. Fields and let them know hey your buying advertising at citi using this annoying line item thing in my recent activity log. I dont like it and I will not buy your products and recommend that my friends dont buy your products. If the companies advertising think its negatively affecting their business then guess what - they will stop.

I suggest we start not only go after the citi's of the world but also those who are feeding the beast.

@DevoAlmighty: gift card

@InfiniTrent: Same here. I am a sucker for the thank-you points. Just about time to cash out. This plus their interest rate shenanigans got me fed up enough to put the card away for just about every purchase. (Though they were decent enough to offer the opt-out on the interest rate change).

@The_IT_Crone: Agree. Citi advertising itself to you while you bank with Citi is annoying enough, but understandable. Third-party ads are bad. I would take my business elsewhere.

No no no no no no no. Just no.