Consumer complaint received 2018-08-27
Company: CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.
State: MI
Product: Payday loan, title loan, or personal loan
Sub-product: Personal line of credit
Issue: Credit limit changed

Complaint:
In XX/XX/XXXX, Citizens Bank  issued our pharmacy business a revolving line of credit for 7 years for the amount of {$120000.00}. In XX/XX/XXXX, the issued as a second line of credit for the amount of {$27000.00} raising the total to {$150000.00}. This second line was never used by us, but it was issued by the bank to act as a safety net. All payments were paid on time every single time over these two years. 

InXX/XX/XXXX we began shopping different banks to acquire a SEPARATE loan for a second business location. Citizens Bank  was one of these locations. We were in contact with a newly appointed loan officer by the name of XXXX XXXX. His official title being the Assistant Vice President of Relationship Management. He reviewed our application for the NEW location, and said he wouldn't be able to do it. 

A few days later we attempted to access our line of credit for our original pharmacy, to pay our drug distributor, but the bank website was down. When we visited the bank branch to get the transfer initiated manually, the manager informed us that our line of credit had been frozen and the current balance had been converted to a term loan. Apparently only the loan officer, XXXX XXXX, could deal with this matter, but she was unable to contact him, as were we because he was intentionally declining our calls. Despite multiple messages from us, and various employees of the bank, we never received any responses. 

According to the bank manager, in order for a change like this to occur with our line of credit, the bank has to issue has a notice 30-60 days ahead of time. In this situation the bank failed to issue any notice whatsoever, and we only found out about this change when we went to make the payment to our distributor. Due to the short notice, we had to scramble and apply for a line of credit with an external loan lender, at an extremely high interest rate that we now have to pay back within the year. 

We project to gross over a million this year, yet the bank with these actions has put our entire business as well as hundreds of patients at risk of not receiving their medication from the pharmacy and pharmacist that they trust. With our numbers, we can get another line of credit elsewhere, but it'll still take a couple of months to secure one. Citizens Bank has been extremely non-compliant in this matter, as they continue to pass this matter on to different members of their company, not giving us any response. In the meantime, we have been forced to consider selling our business, because of the lack of prior of notification. 

Despite us having a perfect record in terms of payments, and everything else, this bank has felt that it is acceptable to yank a line of credit it reviewed only FOUR months ago. As a matter of fact, after the review, the bank felt so confident that it increased our limit. In the past four months, there have been no major changes financially within our business. We simply do not understand how a bank can make such a big change ethically and legally in such a short period of time with NO PRIOR NOTIFICATION WHATSOEVER and put a million dollar business at risk.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation