Citizens Bank
Reviews and Complaints

Tell me how this makes sense;
I had a 30 dollar transfer from my mother so I could buy gas last week, at that time I had 35.95 in my account. After buying gas, a pack of cigarettes and a vitamin water, my account was down to a total of 6.12, green sense, which is a product of theirs injected 3.80 and gave me a total of 9.92, a reoccurring charge posted to my account, it was in pending status when I caught it. I immediately called the organization that posted it and canceled the pending payment as I knew I would not be able to cover it, and I never set the account up to have a reoccurring charge, not only are they hitting me with an NSF charge for the post that I canceled, they saw fit to charge two more NSF charges for the gas, smokes and vitamin water, I've been battling this out with them all day, and will more than likely have to deal with this again tomorrow, all over a reoccurring charge that I originally did not authorize in the first place, I was refunded the money from the organization (xbox live) as I caught it too late and they could only refund the money not reverse the pending payment, but that shouldn't matter should it? I'm only in the negative now because they hit me with the NSF charges in the first place? They said they would reverse the charges for the gas, etc. today, because they would have too since they posted before the xbox live charge, but it still hasn't reflected on my account, and that because the xbox live charge was immediately refunded, to call again when it posts and they would be able to reverse it, but I'm not going to hold my breath since they still haven't reversed the charges they said they would... what should I do?!?!?!?

I had $99 in my account.On a Friday, I made 2 charges, one 29 and the other 36. Again, these charges were on Friday. At the time when it was deducted, there was enough money in there. I was in the middle of changing my account to PNC (thank god), and I had stopped my direct deposit from my paycheck. Admittedly, on my own part, i forgot about an automatic withdrawal that was to come out to go to my savings (every paycheck I do this). This was for $150. This transaction was slated to happen early Monday morning. On Monday, when I saw that it was deducted, I knew I had to run to the bank to deposit 200 to cover the 150 + possible overdraft. H0wever, even though the "posted" dates of the charges $29 and $36 were on different dates (11/15 and 11/16 respectively- weird in its own right), andthe transfer of $150 was posted 11/17, they were all CONVENIENTLY taken out on the same day. And the order was switched. The later transfer ($150) was taken out FIRST, on Tuesday, so that the earlier FRIDAY CHARGES were also overdrawn ($39 charge each - now x 3). Sneaky, eh? When I called to question b/c I immediately had deposited money earlier in the week to cover the $150, they stated I needed to REREAD my disclosure agreement. I work in cancer research. I READ EVERYthing. Sneaky ###. Many hundreds in the hole later, I closed my account next day. F U Citizens. I was a customer since 2002.

I recently went to citizens bank to open another account. They took an awful lot of time to push me to open a new credit card with them. I saw minh binh luu at the brighton mass location. He definitely gave me lousy advice to transfer a balance... With 0% interest. He never mentioned the balance transfer feeeeeeeees. I already have another line of credit with very low interest. I went back to the bank. They wouldnt help me. I spent 45 min on one call and another 30 min. On another call. I wanted the fee waived. It wouldnt hurt them to waive the fee. I am a very good long time customer which they do not care at all about. When I had a big problem with capital one, they actually gave me money! For my troubles. I was very upset, and they actually did something about it. I cancelled my credit card at citizens and they certainly did not care at all. Do not get a citizens bank credit card... There is no customer service at alllllllllllllllllll.

i have an overdraft fee i tried to pay my id is expired .the teller would not accept my deposit therefore untill i get a new id my account will increase in overdraft i was tring to deposit not withdraw ive never heard of such a scam

I was asked to complete a customer service survey. I completed about 50% of the survey and was interrupted by a telephone call. The site 'timed out' and erased the work I did. This is just one of many problems I have had with this bank. If it weren't located next door, I'd take my business to a different bank.

I had no complaints on Citizens bank, that is until I closed my account.
So, 2 months ago I closed my account, 2 months later I received a letter saying that I own them money. I called in a confusion, after two hours and 5 different people, I got the whole story. Apparently, I enrolled in the overdraft protection back in 2007 or something. Now, at the time I enrolled, it didn't have an annual fee. But, apparently at some point, they started to charge annual fee...which I had no knowledge of what so ever. When I close my account, apparently I didn't close the overdraft protection program, and the annual fee is slap on my face. Since, I took all my money out when I close the account, they couldn't take any money out of my account, now they decided they want to charge me interest on it ($20 a month). I got a letter 2 months later, saying that I own 70 some dollars...I tried to reason with them, because 1. I have no knowledge of the annual fee. 2. I don't understand why they didn't close overdraft-protection program when I close my account. 3. I didn't receive any statement for money, until now. so why should I pay for the interest?
The customer service refuse to do anything to help...So i either have to pay them all the money, or they will keep billing me with more interest every month.
What a F****UP bank!

I keep threatening to leave and switch to another bank... why don't I have the guts to actually do it?!? Citizens routinely screws me over and steals my hard-earned money and I somehow am too freaked out by the giant task of switching banks that I let them continue to rob and beat me.

I don't understand how their practices of altering "posting" & "clearing" dates can possibly be legal... They find ways to post things out of order just so you drop below $0 with the possibility of having the most items post/clear after $0 to rack up as many overdraft fees as possible. Great, my account is below $0 already, I'm living check to check, and now I've got close to $200 in fees? Way to go Billion dollar conglomerate, way to make the working man feel real good about themselves! I didn't need to eat this week... They are dishonest, lacking compassion, have terrible customer service, and are money hungry.

A warning as well: when you are attempting to cover a check, bill, etc. by making an after-hours deposit for the next morning, do NOT do it at the ATM. Put it in that drop-box instead, as the ATM envelopes apparently do not get picked up everyday! REALLY! The employees are too lazy to walk outside to get the envelopes to deposit our money to make sure our checks, bills don't bounce, so that they can once again charge us ANOTHER FEE! Think they planned that? Yup...

So, have I finally had enough to switch all my bills, all my direct deposits/withdrawals, and all that jazz?!? I think my time has finally come after 15 years, it's over Citizens, it's over!

I have long felt that I wasn't getting sufficient services, but now that they are tacking on more charges, the services are worse not better. Now I am charged for overdraft protection annually, plus $5/day plus interest, however, when I wrote a check for a service man, exceeding my balance in one account by a couple of dollars, I was not notified so I could move money, nor did they use my overdraft. Instead, they sent my worker away without money, when he needed to pay his workers from my check. Citizen's bad decision embarrassed me and made a whole team of workers have to wait an additional day to be paid.

I have been a customer of Citizen's Bank for about 13 years. Last year, I had to file bankruptcy, so of course, my overdraft line of credit was taken away. I have been struggling ever since. In the last year (and as of today for the last time, I am closing my account and have opened one with INGDirect (great people) and a local Credit Union (who have told me quite a few customers have gone from Citizen's to their institution). I have been charged over $350 in overdraft fees. I am a single mother on a single income (dad is on deadbeat dad list). I have been trying to keep afloat and have called Citizen's Bank and tried to explain to them that one big overdraft charge leads me to more overdrafts (one charge was for $178 in overdraft fees, when the check was for $214 and a McDonald's for $6)! I have vowed to submit these complaints whenever and wherever I can. I was told that they can charge me whatever they want. I hope that this bank gets their just deserts. They are a bunch of crooks.

I have been battling with Citizens Bank for a considerable amount of time involving a fraudulent debit card transaction that was done online on April 16, 2010. I made the mistake of purchasing an Operating System from a website that I believed at the time of the purchase, was legitimate. The amount of the purchase was for $129.99.

After I witnessed the merchants unscrupulous methods of providing me the software (via an unsafe download with no CD copy of the software), I decided to immediately cancel the order. However, the merchant is based in Asia and their methods of communication were limited. I utilized their online correspondence method and I sent them the note to immediately cancel the order. However, they delayed the inevitable and never refunded my money. Instead, they played as if they provided me with my product and took my money. Their website is: www.Only4Soft.com.

I took the matter up with PayPal at first due to the fact that the transaction was initiated through PayPal. I trusted PayPal to be a safe online mediator of electronic transactions conducted online. However, to my dismay, PayPal did nothing. Instead, PayPal advocated for the merchant and said that the merchant was also a customer of theirs.

Apparently, PayPal also mentioned that since the purchase was for a said download, that they would not protect me and get me my money back. PayPal attempted to justify that they do not cover non-tangible goods, such as downloads. However, I explained to PayPal, that I simply wish to cancel the transaction and I took nothing from the merchant, nor did I receive anything from the merchant.

PayPal still chose to do nothing and I go absolutely nowhere with them. So, I decided to contact my bank since the purchase was made with my debit card linked to my checking account. My current bank is Citizens Bank and I provided them with full details of the situation. I requested that they act on my behalf to get me my money back, but they put me through a horrible ordeal.

To make a long story short, Citizens Bank had me go through lengthy and drawn-out measures, only for them to mistreat me in the long run. They had me fill out an affidavit that did nothing to get me my money back. Citizens Bank trifled with the transaction, caused me much pain and suffering, and still to date, I do not have my money back in my account. I spoke with numerous representatives on all different levels of the bank's hierarchy, yet they all advocated doing what has been in the best interest of Citizens Bank.

The matter has even gotten so bad that I could not even resolve it on a branch level. I attempted to do so at my local branch where I opened the account, but the Branch Manager only made matters worse. Eventually, the Branch Manager did not want to do her job to assist me any longer, so she contacted the local police to make it seem as though I was harassing her and behaving in a hostile and criminal fashion. And, the local police ordered me not to go to the branch or call there anymore, even though it is the branch where I opened my account and is closest to me. All of the other branches are pretty far in distance from where I live.

Citizens Bank has since compromised my account, took my money and put a hold on my account, so I can no longer access my money. They have caused me much financial distress, while at the same time tried to ruin my reputation as a law-abiding citizen. How ironic is it that Citizens Bank would do this to me?

Citizens Bank charged $74 in overdraft fees for a $35 recurring item that was presented against a balance of $27.98, a $7.02 overdraft. That is a 1, 054% transaction fee!

The $35 item should not have even been honored in the first place, because it was for a debit transaction on a card that had been canceled. Citizens Bank decided to drop MasterCard and forced me to switch to Visa, and I had started to use the Visa debit card weeks before. So the transaction should never have been honored.

When I explained all of this and that I wanted to have the charges taken off my account by two different members of Citizen Bank's call center group in Ashville, North Carolina, they said there is no way they would reverse the charges.

Both customer service people, Shauna Payne and Ryan Walkenshaw, identified themselves as "Supervisors." It appears that is part of Citizens’ strategy – everyone is a supervisor so there is no one available to transfer calls to. They each refused to let me talk to anyone else to escalate the situation.

The conversations were being recorded. They both said they would be happy to leave a message with someone to call me back, but there is no way that the overdraft fees would be waived by anyone at Citizens Bank.

I told them if they cannot get me a manager to speak with today, they need to put the funds back in the account today and we can resolve the issue when they call me back. I told them that I had made a deposit in the account to pay an important bill, and the $74 that they took out brought the balance down to a point where there is not enough to cover the payment. They both said that was not their problem.

Shauna Payne kept talking over everything I said. At the end of the call, she claimed she would transfer me to a manager's voice mail, and transferred me to a disconnected Verizon mobile phone.

I can't imagine how they can get away with this. Think twice before opening ANY account with Citizens Bank at this point!

I accidently pressed the wrong button online and charged $384 to my checking account. I immediately called the company i was paying a bill for and they told me to call the bank and order a stop payment. I did that. I asked the representative on the phone if the stop payment would actually stop the payment from posting to my account and causing it to overdraft. She said Yes. I also asked her if the stoppayment would be effective on the same day i ordered it, she said yes. So i paid $25 and ordered the stop payment. The following business day i check my account, and find that not only had Citizens bank, not stopped the payment, they over drew my account and charged me $78. Also, since i had made multiple online payments that day, when they posted to my account the bank charged me an additional $78. Then after all those charges, the stop payment kicked and the bank reversed the charge but it didnt make a difference. So now i owe the bank $156, even though i paid them $25 to avoid those charges.
But the story doesnt end there. I called the bank to inquire about the charges and they claim that they were valid because the representative wrote in her notes that she explained everything to me. So immediately requested that they pull the tapes. About 2 1/2 weeks later i still did hear from them about what the tapes said. so i called them back. This time the represetative apologized for the supervisor not contacting me and the other representative one giving me the wrong information but he couldnt help me. He said that they were going to go by the notes that the representative took and that there was no need to pull the tapes.

I tell you, this bank is shameless, i am a college student struggling to make ends meet and the bank takes my money with no mercy. I can't wait fot them to go under. I know that i am not the first or the last person for this to happen to and eventually the bank is going to regret scamming so many customers.

I have more complaints with this bank than I have time to list! There is absolutely no customer loyalty whatsoever, and the way they configure overdraft charges should be illegal. They reconfigure post dates to overdraw accounts so it's impossible to tell when you're going to be charged overdraft fees (at $78 a pop!). I've begged them not to allow the "convenience" of allowing unexpected transactions to go through if there is not enough money in the account but they say it's company policy to allow every transaction to post INDEFINITELY, charging fees on every one. I check my balance every morning online to stay on top of things, but it doesn't matter. If a company with a recurring debit puts a notice in that funds will be withdrawn in 3 days, they overdraw my account the day that notice is sent! So, say it's the 17th and funds are scheduled to be withdrawn on the 20th, if I don't have that money in at the time the notice is made on the 17th, I'm overdrawn...even though the actual funds aren't taken until the 20th! There is just soooooooo much more to say, but it's too frustrating to recount everything, so, bottom line, anyone looking to open up a new account, PLEASE reconsider!.

Can someone explain to me how a check can show up on your on line banking and the next day it didn't clear. I was told that it was posted to my account on 04/07 but it didn't clear until 4/8 and all the money was switched around and I had a bounced check. They should not be showing information that isn't actual. That gives a false report. I go back and think I made an error and correct my check book to match. Now I have 5 insufficient funds transactions. Of course, there is no way to go back to yesterday's screen because they take out and switch things around. I am so out of that bank.

My experience with Citizens has been a total nightmare -don't even think about choosing them for any banking business. I paid off my car loan and three weeks later they refunded the overpayment amont which I deposited. Lo and behold they put a stop payment on the check they owed me!
When I called to inquire I was advised to call back in 24 to 48 hours for a response.
I was unable to speak to a manager, they aren't able to get responses any faster and imagine they wanted me to call them. They are the worst. Stay away!

made a racist comment ("no you're black") before telling me I can't get the job...

when i check account online shows a balance of 3, 36 so i use atm card for gas and spend 3.00 latrr that day i check balance as i was waiting for my direct deposit to hiti checked balance all day the next morning i check and my direct deposit was there minus a 39 dollar fee and then they show a 41c fee that mysteriously show as if it was taken out before the 3 dollar atm debit from gas, so i went to the bank and fought that fee and another fee which after a few days they agreed to give me back, so the next day i check account and it shows the 2 39 dollar fees deposited so i continue to use debit card and make 6 or 7 small transactions then the next day i go to citizens to make 200 dollar deposit and my reciept shows balance -35 dollars so i ask and bank says there fees werent deposited till the following day which is total bs as i called the number on atm card to check balance and showed additional 78 dollars which is exactly the amount of 2 overdraft fees now my account stands with almost 700 dollars in overdraft fees which i will never be able to come back from this is unfair and they said unless i have proof theres nothing i can do

I used to work at Citizens bank in sales. I had to quit because I felt like a hippocrit. Well, first of all, they don't tell you that when you're sitting down at the desk opening an account that they sign you up for rewards that cost you monthly fees out of your account. They aslo don't telly ou that if you want images on your bank statements of checks that it will cost you $3.00 per month. You also won't know when the money will be deducted out of your account, because if you don't have the $3 bucks, you will go negative and be charged! Also, I feel bad for those who get paid every two weeks and don't check their accounts that often. You can be negative .01 and be charged. Also, if you have a social security check made payable to you for your child, you have to open a rep payee account titled the same way the check is titled. Also, they won't tell you that you need $50 bucks to open the checking account. Also, if you want to open an account and your address does not match what's in the computer, with usps then you have to go back home and get a utility bill with your name and address and they need to document it with the acct number and statement period...How would anyone know this before they got there? There is no way. Citizens bank sucks. Also, they apply you for a credit card when they are asking you all of these wuestions, and run your credit once for the credit card and another for the checking account which brings your score down. Often, they don't tell you they are applying you for a credit card, but if you do get pre-approved, they wil say, "OMG you jsut got approved for our Citizens Bank Credit Card"..Get it?I'm telling you this bank is whacko..Stick with the small banks in the areas. They're not out for profit, they're out to keep customers!

My husband has an auto loan with Citizens Bank. Every month, they say they didn't get the payment on time and start calling my house the day the payment is due to inquire as to where the payment is at that time. Although the Post Office's services are not that great anymore, I find it very hard to believe that every month my payment is held up in the mail. This month, they said the payment never arrived...so I paid it over the phone. They charged us a $10 late fee and a $12.50 processing fee to do so. The next day, my original check that was "lost" in the mail cleared the bank ...which means they had it when they denied having it! A week later, they send me a Statement stating they never rec'd. any payments. I called there and they won't discuss it with me because it is my husband's loan, but my husband has at least a dozen times authorizied them to speak with me and even sent it to them in writing. They say they never received the authorization. I am reporting them to the offices of Banking and Insurance.