Banking Nightmares, Citizens Bank = BAD
- April 24th, 2007
- 8:08 PM (GMT-4)
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I have been using Citizens Bank for the last 3 years or so and I have had my fair share of problems with them. You will find in previous posts that I loved them because they were quick to stop fraud and while that is great they have some major drawbacks.
Over the last year I went into the negative (yes I know it’s wrong) and was forced to remain there because of the bank. I would go $200 into the negative and they would tack on another $300 in overdraft fee’s. They charge $38 per item that overdrafts your bank account. While this is in the terms of the agreement when the money is replaced the next day and your account is back in the positive they should wipe out some if not all of the charges. This week Unicel screwed me over because I had a $400 bill to pay, I told them I could pay $250 that day and post-date the remainder for the following Friday. They agreed to that but for some reason they pushed both payments through on the same day. This pulled me into the negative by about $150, then a few more payments did hit my account, the total amount was about $500 in the negative. After all of the bank’s fee’s I found myself $1200 in the negative.
This was on a Thursday and my direct deposit was going to hit the account on Friday. I contacted the bank to see if they would drop some of the fee’s. They told me that they were unable to do anything about the fee’s. While they are good at catching fraud before it actually hit’s your account, if you go into the negative they do everything they can to keep you there. There was one time where I was in and out of the negative for a few months last year. I ended up paying approx. $5,000 in charges last year alone. I am changing banks very soon but when you have multiple accounts and outstanding checks, payment it makes it tough.
One thing they did that I almost feel was illegal was the following. I had 2 accounts at the time one a business account with my business tax id, and a personal checking account. The business account went into the negative and they ended up taking the money from my personal account to 0 out the business account. I did not have any overdraft protection setup on either account and they were in no way linked to each other. The worst part was they did this on Oct. 31 which left me without rent for November of last year. When I questioned this they said that they have the right to remove the funds from any account with my name on it. It makes me wonder how they can do that because I could not put business checks into my personal account, they were seperate entities when I wanted to do that. A business account is supposed to be completely seperate from a personal account.
Needless to say when I contacted them and told them I would be switching banks they said we are sorry to hear this, please keep in mind why you joined out bank to begin with, the low intrest rates, yada yada. My response was what good are these benefits when you hammer your customers with these outrageous fee’s.
It’s kind of ironic tonight I was browsing through the comment spam that I recieve on this blog I found the following entry.
Citizens Bank | SPAM URL HERE | IP: 65.98.59.210
Carolyn…
I found this article to be extremely useful for me. Thanks!…
I just think that is funny 
7 Comments
Joseph Crawford
- 05/12/07
- 03:34 PM
Well now your comment is just too funny. Obviously you did not read the entire post. I stated that I know it is wrong to go into the negative but when you deal with companies like Unicel it tends to happen.
This time that I went into the negative I had paid most of my bill with Unicel, I then had them post-date a check for the remainder that would be processed that Friday. Rather than post-dating the check they put both of them through the same day which pulled me under.
I have checked with Citizens Bank and their terms state that if you are overdraft for more than 4 days the fee’s are $38 per transaction. There were many occasions when I had the funds in the account the next day. In this case the fee’s should have been $17 per transaction according to their terms but they hit me for $38.
I contacted the bank and obviously they just do what they want. They will not refund any of the transaction fee’s that they over charged on.
Anyway I am just waiting for my account at Citibank to complete the opening process and I will be closing the Citizens Bank account.
Tom
- 09/26/07
- 11:23 AM
I know how you feel I’m going through the same thing now
Baby, it’s just business » Banking Nightmares, Citizens Bank = BAD
- 11/07/07
- 10:45 AM
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Pamela
- 01/25/08
- 09:14 AM
My sister had life savings of$12,000 stolen from her checking.
Citizens Bank allowed them to overdraft by $800.00. She prosecuted and he pled guilty.They did not insure funds, reported the overdraft to her credit report which was pristine for 30 years.
Now she can not get a job! DO NOT put large funds in Citizens Bank.
suz
- 01/28/08
- 10:44 AM
I’ve been a PNC customer since ‘96, but just closed the PNC accounts and moved to a credit union after the following BS incident occurred:
I went out of town a few weekends ago to visit friends. During the course of the weekend, I made a number of transactions (10) using my PNC check/debit card, and I had plenty of cash to cover all of them. When I returned home and checked my account, all 10 transactions were showing up in the “pending” section of my account (which means the funds had been reserved), and I still had a balance of over $200. The next day I checked my account again. The 10 transactions were still showing up as “pending” but there was a new charge I hadn’t anticipated which overdrew my account by $15. (It was an autopay that I was expecting to post the following week.) I thought, “Oh crap. I guess they’ll kick that one back and charge me the $36.00 fee.” I was annoyed with myself for miscalculating the date, but was willing to accept the consequences. However, when I checked my account again the next day, what I found was quite horrifying. The lovely people at PNC had posted my transactions not chronologically, but by highest transaction to lowest, so the $200+ transaction hit first. The result? My account now looked as if I had no money in it when those 10 transactions occured, which was not the case. I was billed $360 in overdraft fees for a $15 overdraft. Even though I had been a long term customer (and a “good” customer, according to the first person I spoke with) they refused to reverse a single charge.
Pamela is full of crap
- 07/14/08
- 06:46 PM
Pamela, that is bull. People with bad credit can still get jobs, even if a background/credit check is required. It is true that it is more difficult to get a job in certain industries with bad credit, but ONE bad mark on 30 years of “pristine” credit will not keep you unemployed for life.
Kayla
Tough! Stop spending money until you actually have it! Then you wouldn’t have this problem! You deserve everything you got. If you really paid “$5000.00″ in charges last yr then obviously you are not keeping very good track of your money.
sincerely,
a fellow banker