Consumer complaint received 2023-07-20
Company: CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.
State: MA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Other transaction problem

Complaint:
I successfully registered my savings account at XXXX as an external account -- including the successful deposit and withdrawal of XXXX XXXX amounts -- on the Citizens Bank web portal. After that was completed, I initiated an external transfer from my Citizens savings account to my XXXX account in the amount of {$1500.00} using the Citizens Bank web portal. Funds were withdrawn from my Citizens Bank checking account on XX/XX/XXXX and the transfer to my external savings account at XXXX was to be completed by XX/XX/XXXX. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I received a cryptic email from Citizens Bank indicating the transfer was not completed correctly. 

When the funds still had not been received at XXXX nor redeposited to my Citizens Bank account as of XX/XX/XXXX, one day after the XXXX to complete the transfer, I went to my local branch to speak with a manager. After explaining the issue to him, he called your internal Citizens Bank support and after a brief conversation with them, informed me the transfer was successful and that I would have to take up the issue with XXXX since there was nothing else he could do. 

I was completely dismayed at his response and protested the issue was in fact due to a problem on the Citizens Bank side. I then produced the email I had received from Citizens Bank indicating the failure and showed it to him. How is that one part of Citizens Bank system says it was unsuccessful and one part says it was successful?

At that point the manager called a different support department and we then had to wait almost XXXX minutes on hold before someone answered. I'm used to long hold times as an external customer but how is that internal bank employees fare no better? The manager spoke with this new department who claimed the funds would be returned by Friday. When asked why the transfer did not go through successfully even though the external account had been set up correctly, he was told there was a system wide event within Citizens Bank on the XXXX. After hanging up the phone with the support team, he relayed this to me. 

I informed him this was completely unacceptable. If Citizens Bank had technical issues on XX/XX/XXXX, why wasn't the transfer reinitiated on the XXXX, XXXX, or XXXX? Failing that, why is my money still being held XXXX if no further transfers were going to be attempted? I needed those funds that day. It had already been XXXX business days since the transfer was unsuccessful. This screw up is ENTIRELY the responsibility of Citizens Bank. Upon explaining all of this to the manager he simply waved his hands and claimed there was nothing else he could do. At which point I asked for his supervervisor 's contact information. 

Upon returning home I called the Citizens Bank online banking support department to report the issue and attempt to get it resolved. After looking into it the agent said the funds would be returned to me in another XXXX business days *from the XXXX at which point I protested and asked to speak with a supervisor. After explaining the issue yet again, that supervisor confirmed there had been an issue on the part of Citizens Bank on XX/XX/XXXX. She informed me the best she would do is to request an expedite of the refund which would still take at least a business day. 

I emailed the supervisor of my local bank manager whom I had spoken with earlier in the day explaining the issue and asking for him to help resolve it. He never responded. 

A full business day later and my money is still being held XXXX.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation