Consumer complaint received 2020-03-11
Company: CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.
State: CA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Problem with a lender or other company charging your account
Sub-issue: Transaction was not authorized

Complaint:
I was living and working in the XXXX area from XXXX to XXXX of XXXX. 

There was a Citizens Bank branch ( XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX, MA XXXX ) next door to my work, so I made a checking account with them, and would deposit my cash tips there every day. 

Toward the spring, the reps at the bank started getting very aggressive with me. Someone would approach me and try to pitch me extra banking products every other time I walked inside to make a simple deposit, and I was clearly uncomfortable every time they approached me. They asked me to " sit down and have a seat with them '' multiple times even though all I was doing was waiting in line to do some very quick, simple transactions. 

It was annoying, but I didn't think too much of it. They probably feel pressured to sell banking products and they have to put food on the table just like the rest of us, so I let it slide. 

But in XXXX when I was about to quit my job, I decided I did not want to bank with them anymore - it was only out of the convenience of their location that I had kept banking with them up until this point. 

I knew they were strange and aggressive, so I made a point to physically go into the branch and sit down with one of their reps to close my account. I did not want to do it over the phone or online because I did not trust them, so I made a point to do it in person. 

I sat down with a rep in her office, and was very explicit and thorough in communicating that I wanted my checking account closed. I withdrew my entire balance, and clarified that I did not want the count reopened under any circumstances. I also made sure that I had no recurring payments associated with that account. The rep assured me I had nothing to worry about, the account was closed ( or so I thought ), and I left. 

Fast forward to XXXX of XXXX. I have an account with a company called XXXX that I have had for multiple years that has some money in it, and I decided I wanted to transfer money from that XXXX account to my current checking account with XXXX XXXX. 

However, when I went to submit the transfer, I accidentally selected my old checking account with Citizens Bank ( because  this account was what I added when I first opened my XXXX   account last year, and I was not paying close attention when I submitted the transfer ). 

I noticed my error shortly after, but figured the transfer wouldn't go through, because, after all, I had closed my account with Citizens Bank. But it did go through. 

I was confused, and logged into my Citizens Bank account online with my old username and password. That was when I saw that not only did they never close my account, but they had been charging me a {$9.00} monthly fee for the past several months for having an account balance of {$0.00}. 

Furthermore, I was never once contacted ( neither by email nor by phone ) by Citizens Bank about these fees that were piling up in my account. 

In order to stop getting these fees, I immediately transferred {$50.00} into the account. 

I then tried to figure out why I had not received so much as an automated email about these fees being applied to my account each month. So I logged back into my Citizens Bank account online, and went to my " email settings. '' It was here that I saw that there was a typo in the email I had with them - it was off by one letter. 

Now I know I sound paranoid, but the thing is, I have typed my email address thousands of times for different accounts and other things, and have never once made a typo. Furthermore, without going into detail, it is not even the kind of typo that is realistic to make ( though it is hard to explain this without revealing my email address ). 

I wondered : did they really go in and tamper with my email, to give themselves an excuse for why they could never get contact me? 

At first I thought I was just being paranoid, and that I had probably just made this typo, and it was ridiculous of me to think they would go out of their way to change my email address behind my back like that. 

But then I remembered the XXXX XXXX scandal of XXXX, and how crazy that all was. There were branch bankers literally opening accounts for their pets, and the intense pressure the bank was placing on these retail bankers to keep accounts open is well-documented. 

So it is actually not a stretch at all to assume that similar pressure is placed on bankers at other banks, and that some banker would take a dishonest shortcut like this, just to keep an account open behind my back. 

I called the branch at XXXX XXXX XXXX, told them the situation in a calm, polite way, but the woman on the other end was rude and strange ( some things never change ) and just kept telling me to call the customer service line. 

At this point I was committed to see this thing through, so I called customer service, connected, explained the situation, and was placed on hold. 

I didn't time it, but I was on hold for probably about 10 minutes when the woman answered again and said " sorry, I have to keep you on hold for longer. '' I was then on hold for yet another ~5 minutes. She answered again and said " sorry, I'm still trying to help, but I have to keep you on hold. '' I then assured her that I was not going anywhere, that I had all the time in the world, and would wait however long I needed to. I was on the line with the next person within 1 minute after that. 

I explained the situation yet again to the next person. He tried to act like it was my fault, saying " you said the account was closed, but I see a {$400.00} deposit a week ago? '' - so I explained that it was the accidental deposit I had made from XXXX, and it was actually the only reason I realized my account was never closed in the first place. 

He tried to play a few other games, but ultimately I told him I would take legal action if he kept it up. He then refunded my account for all of the fees. 

I was happy to get my money back, but I walked away even more convinced that they were partaking in fraudulent practices, and that there was no way that I am the only one they have done this to. 

I am sure they have done similar things to people who have less resources and time than I do to actually push back against their creepy, fraudulent, and predatory behavior. 

I imagine they have been able to scrape similar amounts of money off of other people, and were able to convince them that it was their fault ( " hmmm, looks like there's a typo in your email ... there's nothing I can do, sorry '' ) when it is almost definitely just them scamming people out of desperation. 

I was on vacation when I found about this, and still as I write this, so I figured I could take the time to contact the CFPB and do this write-up, in the hope that maybe it will prevent them from continuing to do this to more people - though I doubt it. 

I might take further action to alert the proper authorities about this, because even though the fees are relatively small for one person, I think this is a feature of their scam, rather than a bug - by keeping the fees from being too excessive for any one person, they probably think most people won't bother to fight them on it because they aren't willing to waste the time. 

But if they are doing this to hundreds or even thousands of people, they probably think they will be able to get away with this highway robbery as " the little guy '' isn't going to fight them on it. At the very least, someone should take a look into this. 

Moral of the story : don't bank with Citizens Bank. They are sleazy at best, and probably participating in fraudulent practices like XXXX XXXX in XXXX.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation