Citizens Bank Ripoff Free Checking Scam the worst customer service in banking Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

Citizens Bank promotes their "free" checking scam which misleads people into placing their trust and their money into a Citizens Bank account. However the customer is actually giving Citizens Bank the power to regulate their hard earned money and gives Citizens Bank the power to charge them huge amounts of fees when they break these "regulations".

In addition their checking account scam they have the worst customer service in banking today. I had only had a Citizens Bank account for less than a month when I tried to use my debit card and it had been declined, I knew I had money in the account so I checked the ATM, it said that my account was negative $105! My checkbook said that I had more than enough money to cover the small purchases that I had made as I had deposited a check 9 days prior to my card being declined.

I called their customer service number to try and rectify the situation, and at first they acted like I had a problem balancing my checkbook and tried to brush me off, so I went through each transaction with them and proved that I didn't. The representative then put me on hold while he talked with his supervisor, they then came up with a story that I spent money before the funds from the check that I deposited prior were available, citing their 5 day hold policy! I called them out on that as well as my check had to have been held for more than five days in order for the funds not to be available, but they stuck to their story saying as a "courtesy" to me they will refund $35 of the $140 they had charged me.

Call me crazy but I don't believe that it is a courtesy when they STEAL my money by wiping out the funds in my account, and CHARGE me additional money because they are accusing me of violating some supposed policy that says when I can and cannot have my hard earned money. They acted like they were doing me a favor and I should just tell them thanks and hang up the phone happy that I am not obligated to pay them as much money and became angry with me when I still was not happy.

I having been in customer service and have dealt with people in business before made sure they understood that I was not mad at them personally and I did not yell or raise my voice to them, but they continued to be hostile toward me. The supervisor that I spoke with even implied that I was "stupid" for not being informed of these supposed policies, and that something like this would never happen to her. It is like their whole way of doing business was to keep insulting me so I felt stupid and accepted their offer of refunding some of the money and admitting that this was my fault. I hung up the phone without accepting their so called "generous offer". The next day I went into my branch to speak with someone in person.

Initially I was very pleased with that meeting, I explained the situation to the representative she said she understood and told me that she would take care of it for me and that my funds will be available on Monday, since this was on a Saturday. Monday came and only two of the four NSF fees had been refunded and my account was still overdrawn. I went into the branch again, the woman that I had spoke to was not there so I spoke to someone else. That person said that she is surprised that the other representative would tell me that she would fix the whole situation, and that the bank went "above and beyond" to refund two of the fees and now I had put them over budget!! What about my budget???

I have not had access to my bank account for 5 days at this point and am facing having to pay the bank fees. That representative told me that she could do nothing for me and said that she would talk to the other representative but was sure the bank would do nothing further because they already had done enough! She also told me that it is another policy of the bank that when they are faced with a situation where they would either make deposited funds available or subtract a transaction they subtract first!!!! That bank representitive also became angry and hostile toward me even though I was not yelling, raising my voice, causing a scene, or blaming her for the situation. She even raised her voice towards me, and pulled the same tactics that the representatives on the phone did trying to imply that I was stupid.

Citizens Bank is like a pack of wolves searching for ways they can devour your money, they have written policies in such a way that it always serves their purpose and gives the account owner limited access to their own money. I could understand if someone spent more money than they had in their account and in that case they would owe the bank, but in my case the funds were there and they just chose not to release them for an extended period of time. They have made thievery legalized and worst of all they steal from their own customers to whom they owe their whole livelihood. There is an old saying that says "don't bite the hand that feeds you" and this is exactly what Citizens Bank is doing.

My advice is to stay far away from Citizens Bank for their poor customer service tactics, and when dealing with another bank which has "free" checking and I'm sure has the same self serving policies, cash all checks with a check cashing service first. The check cashing service I will use charges $3 and gives you cash at that time, the only drawback is that they will not cash any checks over $1000, what you can do then is deposit only the cash into your bank account to cover the necessary transactions while maintaining a minimum balance to keep the account open. When you deposit cash into the account the bank must make it available immediately and cannot hold it for any period of time therefore limiting your risk of these kinds of fees. Also never use your debit card at the point of sale unless it is a large purchase and you do not want to carry that much cash.

We have to out think people that I'm sure spend a 40 hour workweek thinking of ways to charge you more and more fees to make more and more money for their bank.

Nick
bridgeville, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.