Sascha Pallenberg

Review of Citibank Taipei

Warning: this was by far the worst experience I've...

Warning: this was by far the worst experience I've ever had with any bank!

Living in Taipei and paying taxes in Taiwan for 11 years you might think that you have the same access to common services like every other citizen. Well, it seems that Citibank has a different opinion.

- It took 6 weeks for them to make an appointment to open up a bank-account
- Well, I was there on time (coming straight from the airport after a 12 hours flight from Europe), they were late and refused to open up an account because I was in the process of getting my new Alien Resident Card (which takes just 2 weeks and I brought all the documents to prove it).
- 2 weeks later I had the next appointment. Now they were 25 mins late. After they asked me several times if I live in the US or Germany and if I pay taxes in Taiwan (I brought all tax-documents, employment contract, copies of paychecks, passport, ARC, apartment-contract) they let me fill out a bunch of documents before another person entered the room.
She didn't even introduced herself at all!
For the third time they took my ARC and passport, went out, then came back asking me if I can read traditional Chinese, which I can't but they said they will provide me with an English copy of the contract.

Well huge discussion went on between the different Citibank workers. Right in front of me. Then they left the room again after I said that I feel very uncomfortable!

After an hour I told them that I want my passport and ARC back and told them to destroy all copies of my documents.

This was by far the rudest and most unprofessional staff I've ever faced in my entire life and I lived on 3 different continents.

Stay away from this bank! This is just a waste of time. Unfriendly, unprofessional and straight out rude!