Wire Transfers

I've just been through my first wire transfer experience with Citibank. Lesson learned is third time's the charm.

Transferring the £ from my UK account into $ in my US account was the easiest part - no fees and it was immediate! But setting up the domestic US wire transfer to my friend was interesting. First I had to track down the ABA number (finally found it on my friend's bank web site), then I tried to put in the online request. First, you have to request an authorization code which is only valid for 24 hours. You click a button to request it, and they say you will receive an email 'shortly'. Unfortunately, it took 2 hours.

Once I had the auth code, I could enter it online and start the wire transfer request. I put in all the required info, ABA number, etc and click submit. A pop-up window instructs me to call customer service to confirm the transfer. Hmf. Ok, fine, I guess it's for security reasons.

I reached a customer service representative very quickly, and starting to provide further authorization of who I am, how much I am transferring and to whom. Everything was going fine until they wanted information that is on my Citibank US debit card. I tried to explain why I don't have it with me (I live in the UK so don't carry it around; isn't this the whole point of online banking, etc), but no joy. Unless I have the card, they won't process the wire transfer. Sigh.


That night I go home, retrieve my card and head back out to the Internet cafe. I repeat the process (above) and successfully validate my existence with the help of my debit card. I'm told there should be no problem processing the transfer and to confirm, I can look at my account the next morning to see that the money is gone. Great!

This morning at work, I go online....why is there so much money still in my account? I call Customer Service and find out that the second wire transfer was cancelled because they couldn't get a hold of me by phone to validate the transfer. Validate the transfer? AGAIN? Isn't that why I called them? Apparently, they call again later to reconfirm, but they had my old US cell phone number. Sigh. No one told me that was part of the process.


So again this morning, I enter in all the transfer information online, I call the bank to authenticate myself, and I make sure they have my updated UK mobile number in their system. I wait for them to call me and then all of a sudden at 4pm UK time, the money is out of my account. Geez, after all that and they DON'T call me. Now I'm offended! At least it worked and now I know the process for next time.