Consumer complaint received 2018-07-05
Company: CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.
State: RI
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Other banking product or service
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Deposits and withdrawals

Complaint:
On XX/XX/2018, my husband and I woke up to an e-mail from Citizens bank stating that we have reached our limited transfers for the month. We knew something was wrong right away, because neither of us had made any transfers from our checkings account to our savings account. As soon as we logged on to online banking, we saw that someone had gotten into our savings account and there were over 15 deposits and withdrawals ( all less than {$1.00} ) from other banks and online websites trying to verify the account. We printed the e-mail along with our statements and went straight to the branch. Overall it was discovered that we lost {$0.00}. Even though it was such a little amount, a claim for fraud had to be filed and the account had to be left open until the claim was resolved. In the meantime, we opened a new savings account with Citizens, withdrew {$6100.00} from our original savings account and deposited it into the new one. For the next three days, it showed that we had {$0.00} in the old account ( waiting for the claim to be resolved XXXX and {$6100.00} in our new account. 

On the morning of Tuesday, XX/XX/XXXX, my husband woke up to an e-mail that a third person was added to our XXXX account. Neither one of us had heard of the XXXX program, but when we logged onto online banking, there indeed was a third name listed on our accounts. It was a name neither one of us had ever heard. This person attempted to transfer {$2500.00} out of our original savings account and made various credit card payments in amounts of {$200.00} and {$840.00} to other banks. The bank approved all of these transactions, however we were luckily able to cancel one of them while it was still pending. The more suspicious activity we found on XX/XX/XXXX was that the NEW savings account, which was only opened 4 days prior, had also been hacked into and again we saw small charges from other banks trying to verify the account. At the same time, we still had the {$6100.00} in our new savings account, but {$5900.00} was also showing in our old account that we had withdrew funds from. It was our understanding that there was an ALL HOLDS on this account, but were told that bank errors were made and would be resolved. Out of 24 hours, I spent 6 of them  at the branch ( 5 months pregnant ) trying to resolve this issue, which continued on Wednesday, XX/XX/XXXX when Citizens Bank did a debit memo of {$220.00} from our checking account, which had not been hacked previously. We learned that because we withdrew {$6100.00} from Citizens on Saturday and {$5900.00} displayed in our account four days later, citizens took our money from a separate ( checking ) account to make adjustments, without our permission. At this point, my husband and I agreed that my body and XXXX should not handle the stress and told the branch that we would be calling our lawyer. On Wednesday, XX/XX/XXXX, this situation was escalated to the Office of the XXXX at Citizens bank. The branch told us that we would hear from them in 2-3 business days. Today, XX/XX/XXXX makes two weeks since this case was escalated and we have not heard from anyone. We have called their service center multiple times only to talk to multiple departments and hear the same answers - someone will contact us. At this point, we still have not received our money back from the bank nor do we have any answers as to how these transactions were approved and how someone else was able to access our accounts. 

We do have a very organized folder containing deposit/withdrawal slips, statements, and letters of correspondence to and from the bank. However, until this goes further I am not comfortable uploading these documents at this time.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation