Citizens Bank has screwed me up today.

[HiiiPoWeR]

Citizens Bank has on/off again outage going on that caused all my checks to bounce earlier this morning. My account had an negative balance of $468 in overdraft fee's until they finally fixed the error delaying paychecks. I got an email from my creditors stating the check has been returned and some of them are adding a $20 return fee. My electric company has placed a **bleep**ing restriction on my account preventing me from paying with my bank account. This is the second this has happen this month.  I spoke to the bank and they told they will not refund the overdraft fee's.

 I use CitiBank (never had problem) as my main banking, but don't like to have funds tied to one account. So, I use Citizens Bank to pay all my house bills. I usually set it and forget it.

[Anonymous]

I'd wait until i have all the NSF charges & all the different utilities other accounts have charged a bad check fee to you and make a good long list of itemized charges with totals & then send a certified mail to the president of that Bank requesting a refund of all charges. Give them 10 days to respond.

If they fail to respond or refund you the money, i would file a Federal Reserve Bank complaint and put the bank on notice. 

[HiiiPoWeR]

Will do. Thanks! I also want them to write letter to my creditors telling them that it was the banks fault and not mine.

[Appleman]

Sorry to hear the frustration you are currently facing.

I will avoid offering any advice as it seems you are just needing to vent.

[Anonymous]

It's unlikely they will let your creditors know but you can claim triple damages in certain states or demand that each creditors be duly notified of reasons behind failure to pay your creditors as part of your condition for settlement. There's always CFPB complaints.

[Anonymous]

In the meantime I would move all payments back to Citi, don't get fooled 3 times.

[Anonymous]

Citizens is my primary bank, and I did notice this morning that my check wasn't showing as being deposited via direct deposit. The mobile app was down. By the time I got it to work, it was showing that it had been deposited as normal.

I've never had issues with them, but I never use checks to pay anything. One time my electric company somehow withdrew my electric bill twice, which overdrafted my account. I called them and they didn't charge me an overdraft fee. If this overdraft is the bank's fault, I'd escalate the situation to get them to take responsibility for it and refund the fees. That said....maybe use electronic funds transfers or online payments instead of paper checks next time? 

[Anonymous]

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@HiiiPoWeR wrote:

Citizens Bank has on/off again outage going on that caused all my checks to bounce earlier this morning. My account had an negative balance of $468 in overdraft fee's until they finally fixed the error delaying paychecks. I got an email from my creditors stating the check has been returned and some of them are adding a $20 return fee. My electric company has placed a **bleep**ing restriction on my account preventing me from paying with my bank account. This is the second this has happen this month.  I spoke to the bank and they told they will not refund the overdraft fee's.

 I use CitiBank (never had problem) as my main banking, but don't like to have funds tied to one account. So, I use Citizens Bank to pay all my house bills. I usually set it and forget it.

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Kept Citizens Bank for about two weeks. Just like M&T, they suck. Seems like community banks aren't that great like they used to be. 

Applied for a credit card through Citizens and three weeks later, they sent me a denial letter because they were unable to verify my identity... It's not like they stopped and asked for verification... Nope, just a denial. Keep in mind I've never received such a denial reason in my entire life until that moment. Citizens never does instant approvals, and it always take a week or longer to get a decision. Not only that, but they don't have a way to tell you their decision... They'll either send you a denial letter, or a card will just show up in your mailbox someday. 

Another kicker about Citizens... They have outsourced customer service. You'd think being a community bank, they'd have local reps who work in the area, or at least in the U.S helping out their customers. M&T, Key, and local credit unions have knowledgable U.S based reps, while Citizens doesn't. 

Let's see, $12 for them to transfer your own money from your savings to checking to cover an overdraft (Chase doesn't charge a fee for this, nor does any credit union). A $30 annual fee for an overdraft line of credit (stupid). $12 to get your replacement card expedited. 

People are better off using a "big bank" rather than community bank these days. OP, I would go with a local credit union or Chase. Oh, and contact the CFPB immediately. 

[Gmood1]

Might sound crazy, I like using my CCs as the middle ground for household bill payments.
That gives you a 25 to 55 day float depending on when it debits the CC. If you have the option and it's not going to cost you, I'd switch gears and let your CCs work for you. You'll lessen the chances of it happening again.
You'll have nearly double the funds in the bank account being debited by the CC companies, because of the float.😉
Sounds like Citizens sucks! Sorry to read of your troubles.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:Kept Citizens Bank for about two weeks. Just like M&T, they suck. Seems like community banks aren't that great like they used to be. 

Applied for a credit card through Citizens and three weeks later, they sent me a denial letter because they were unable to verify my identity... It's not like they stopped and asked for verification... Nope, just a denial. Keep in mind I've never received such a denial reason in my entire life until that moment. Citizens never does instant approvals, and it always take a week or longer to get a decision. Not only that, but they don't have a way to tell you their decision... They'll either send you a denial letter, or a card will just show up in your mailbox someday. 

Another kicker about Citizens... They have outsourced customer service. You'd think being a community bank, they'd have local reps who work in the area, or at least in the U.S helping out their customers. M&T, Key, and local credit unions have knowledgable U.S based reps, while Citizens doesn't. 

Let's see, $12 for them to transfer your own money from your savings to checking to cover an overdraft (Chase doesn't charge a fee for this, nor does any credit union). A $30 annual fee for an overdraft line of credit (stupid). $12 to get your replacement card expedited. 

People are better off using a "big bank" rather than community bank these days. OP, I would go with a local credit union or Chase. Oh, and contact the CFPB immediately. 

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Not entirely true. I've called Citizens each time that I'm traveling to give them a heads up so it won't be flagged as fraud, and I've spoken to a CSR based in the US. Not every time....sometimes it seemed very obvious that it was a foreign person. But the last time I called just earlier this month, I spoke to someone who was in the US and I know this because she was chatting with me about where she was from (we happened to be from the same area) and where she lives now. So perhaps some of their customer service is US based and some is outsourced. 

Also, approvals have always been instant in my experience. I have two Citizens CCs. Both were preapprovals which were offered to me in the branch. Both were SP approvals, and both gave me my SL instantly once the teller clicked that I accepted the offer.

I do agree that some of their fees like the fee for the overdraft line of credit, etc is stupid. But I don't use that so don't have any personal experience with it. I know that one time when my electric company double charged my checking account, I rushed to transfer money from savings to checking and they didn't charge me any fees at all. No overdraft fee and no fee to transfer the money to cover the overdraft. *shrug* I don't know. Maybe I've just been lucky to have a good experience with them.