I have been a customer of Citizens Bank for over 10 years and am still appalled by the lack of customer service I recently received. I wrote a check to my brother-in-law and his wife to celebrate their wedding and help provide funds for their honeymoon. All seemed well as they cashed the check and it cleared prior to them leaving; however, a day later Citizens took it upon themselves to reverse the check. I noticed this and called customer service and am still dumbfounded by their ineptitude and lack of empathy for potentially ruining a newlyweds honeymoon. Long story short, their only solution was for me to write them another check. Despite them being out of the country and Citizens having the account information where they initially deposited the funds, their only remediation was for me to write another check. I am still awestruck. I am all for fraud protection; however, how is it possible to do something without even contacting the customer to verify that fraud existed? The first customer service agent had no clue why the deposit was reversed initially, which makes me feel real safe as a customer. When escallated to a supervisor their only response was that my signature didn't match what was on file. I am no handwriting specialist; however, I cannot imagine that my signature has changed that much in my 35 years...and even if so, I cannot imagine that it would be acceptable to do such a reversal without any contact with the customer. So imagine a bank that couldn't care less than newlyweds are out of the country with $1000 less then than think they have to spend; and claim to have their hands tied with no possible means to rectify an error on their end. If this is acceptable to you, by all means bank with Citizens. If not, than feel free to join Wells Fargo like I just did. read more
