Consumer complaint received 2022-10-25
Company: FIRST CITIZENS BANCSHARES, INC.
State: NC
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Cashing a check

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX I visited the First Citizens XXXX on XXXX XXXX  XXXX, XXXX, NC to cash a check that I received from an employer. I have a checking account and a credit card through First Citizens as well, however, this is not my primary bank. I went up to the counter and the teller, who I recognized from a previous visit while she was training, assisted me with the check cashing where I requested to have all cash back. The teller counted the funds and put them in a white money envelope. This is standard for me- it's what I always have them do. I have never, as long as I've visited this branch, take the money out and count or verify anything as I just watched the teller do this. I planned to take the money to XXXX  XXXX XXXX to deposit there and never got around to it until Monday, XX/XX/XXXX as I had to coordinate this time with my wife as we also had to deposit a tax refund check and we needed to be there together to do this. The bank XXXX XXXX XXXX  XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX that XXXX of the {$100.00} bills were counterfeit and you could clearly see that they were as they both had the word " COPY '' printed on them. The teller ran the bills through a machine and also marked the bills with a pen and said that if they were real the line would turn yellow, but it stayed XXXX. I never took the money out of the envelope from the time I received it on XXXX until we went to XXXX  XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX so I can with 100 % certainty say that I received these counterfeit bills from First Citizens. I asked the teller at XXXX what could be done and they informed me that they would need keep the bills but could provide us with a photocopy of them to show First Citizens. The teller then called her manager over and explained what happened and she said she would return the bills to us under the guise that we went back to First Citizens and reported it to them. I returned back to First Citizens and spoke with the manager, XXXX, and explained to her what had happened and at first she was very dismissive and really was not interested in hearing what I was saying. I completely understand that it did look suspect given that I was originally in there on XXXX, but I could with 100 % certainty say that the counterfeit bills came from her branch. I asked her to review the security camera on the teller that helped me, but she was not helpful at all and just said that there was nothing that could be done and that it's the customers responsibility to check the money before leaving a bank. In all of my years of banking I have never thought to check for counterfeit bills from a bank. Ever. They have the training, technology and every day practice to be able to spot counterfeit bills as the employee at XXXX did so very quickly. There was no empathy or willingness to help from XXXX until she asked me for my ID and pulled up my account and saw that I do have an account there with a decent balance as well as a credit and then at that point she said she would escalate it to her operations manager and call me back. Later that day she did call me back and informed me that her operations manager said nothing could be done. So I am out of {$200.00} on the fault of a bank for passing along counterfeit bills to a customer.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation