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Virtual Account Numbers down for at least over a day

Thu, 06/13/2013 - 1:01pm - Anonymous
Site: 
Citibank
Any attempt to access Citibank's virtual account number facility fails with the message "Unable to connect to the server" after you log in. This happens when using both the desktop widget or going through the web site. I contacted Citibank yesterday, and they said it would be fixed within three hours. It is still not working today.
Screenshot: 

Comments

David on
Actually, Virtual Account Numbers has been down for 2-3 days now. A friend and I who both use the VAN feature extensively, both noticed Citi's VAN program went down when the new latest edition of Adobe Flash Player was installed. Guess Citi was notified of this, and they are trying to fix the VAN program. But whatever reason, Citicorp is dropping the ball big time on this again. There are literally too many comments to count posted over on the Facebook Citi website monitoring page with people angrily upset with this latest Virtual Accounts Numbers program problem. My wife and I (and a few friends) are seriously considering leaving Citicorp for good because of this, as we all use VANs for online buying protection reasons. Citi's VAN feature has been down too many times over the past year. Turns out Discover cards offers this same virtual account number service, and their VAN program hasn't been down in over 2 years. Go figure. Wonder what Citi's excuse is going to be this time???
leahyudle on
Yes, 3 days of frustration and a delay of a needed purchase due to Citi's VAN being unavailable. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I use Citi over Discover because with Citi, we can specifiy an amount and expiration date for each individual VAN. Discover lacks these options, and a merchant can continue to use the number for future purchases. The VAN numbers don't expire until the card expires. To delete previous VAN numbers, one has to go through the trouble of calling Discover to request it. For me, this negates the ease and security of a VAN.
me on
6/14/13 midday...spole to US based tech...seems ithe Virtual numbers DO and are working for SOME customers, for others it is not. They don't know the reason...they offered to "reset" my account which has helped some customers...but last time they did this it created other issues which took mobths to fix!
leahyudle on
It would be interesting to know whether the problem is specific to operating systems. Because I use a Mac, I'm required to launch the web based VAN app. Wonder if those on PCs are having more success.
me on
as of 9:38PM EST using Explorer the Virtual system appears 100% functional for me.
me on
System appears up as of 9:30PM EST 6-14 using Win xp explorer V8x
Guitar-Picker on

From Austin TX I have had this problem with Mac OS Tiger and Safari, MacOS Tiger and Firefox, Win 7 Ultimate with IE 11, and Win 7 Ultimate with Firefox, all via Roadrunner.  Perhaps coincidentally - or otherwise - I updated Flash Player just before I noticed the problem.  I've used VANs for at least 15 years via Citi, but lately these kinds of issues seem to be becoming more frequent.  What galls me is that Citi's web gurus don't seem to be able to put up any kind of alert when the site is experiencing sporadic problems (maybe becuase it still works for some people, while not for others?).  This means you waste a lot of time going through all the screens and at the last minute, you get the yellow Dialog of Doom.  This frustration is magnified when you realize that many times, to make the desired purchase, you have already logged into some other vendor site, set up a cart, selected your product, and in some cases the vendor site has a time-out for security purposes. Now the Citi site wastes more of your time as you try to complete the VAN, and the vendor site times out on you. If you had a click-and-scroll counter you might easily discover that you have wasted hundreds of mouse clicks, scrolls, window pops, hops back and forth, secondary tabs or windows to check other info.....and it has all collapsed like a house of cards, when Citi LETS YOU DOWN. It's almost a feeling of being swindled or duped. Those are not the kinds of feelings that Citi's Marketing VP wants to engender in its customers!  My other gripe is that the security phone message plods along with a very slow speaking voice, repeats itself in Spanish (I'm an American; if I wanted Spanish I would live in a Spanish country!) Then there is an eight second silence pause, followed by a very slow recititation of the code number.  Why can't (a) I designate in my account settings what language I prefer, so I don't need to hear foreign languages?  and (b) why can't the message just say, "Your code number is 0000000".  That would take about three seconds and not waste my cell minuttes.  These sound like minor gripes but they add up to big frustration.  I hope Citi is watching this site and gives some serious thought to making this whole process faster and more reliable.  I'm sure everyone at Citi is well meaning, hard working pros....but maybe they need to hear our side of the story now and then.

Guitar-Picker on

For what it's worth, after posting the above, I uninstalled the latest (ver.15) Adobe Flash Player and then installed an earlier version, using IE 11 on my Win 7 PC. It did not help; the VAN site was still displaying the yellow Dialog of Death. 

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