Consumer complaint received 2018-04-26
Company: CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.
State: IL
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Home equity loan or line of credit (HELOC)
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
In XX/XX/XXXX I set up automatic payments on a citizens bank heloc I have. The system took 2 payments in XX/XX/XXXX and did not take a payment in XX/XX/XXXX. When I received my XX/XX/XXXX statement from citizens bank it showed no payment taken. I called customer service and they advised they would fix the problem and reflect one of the two payments made in XX/XX/XXXX as a XX/XX/XXXX payment. Several days later I received a letter from citizens bank collection department dated XX/XX/XXXX. To summarize since i received that letter I have spent more than five hours on the phone with citizens bank customer service receiving totally conflicting information about my loan payments. I have received conflicting emails from citizens bank about my payments. They have now advised they see a payment to someone else 's account ( giving me the name of that other customer of theirs ) taken from my checking account at XXXX XXXX. XXXX XXXX confirms the money was drawn from my account and paid to citizens bank and it was a PHONE payment. I made no such payment. 

XXXX XXXX from citizens bank addressed the problem to me on the phone yesterday morning by saying they see no such record of that payment and to " prove '' to them the payment was taken from my checking account. I informed her they don't see the payment because it went to someone elses account. I have an email confirmation of the payment from citizens bank being applied to an account that is not mine. 
XXXX XXXX further advised that if I made a complaint to the cfpb it would " just come back to her '' which I view as an attempt to discourage me from making the complaint. 
Citizens bank help with this problem has been utterly incompetent and outright arrogant and smug. I would like them to confirm I'm set up for automatic monthly payments and that they have corrected the payment made to somebody else 's account. So far, they have done neither of those things. Given their contradictory customer service information and refusal to straighten out the payment taken from me and credited to somebody else 's account I am deeply concerned about this home equity lender and my account. Customer service has been nothing of that sort ( service ) and contradictory and confusing. I would recommend others be cautious with this lender because I have been given nothing but problems in the more than five hours I have had to spend trying to just make my payments and get confirmation that future payments are set up. They have also now taken money from my checking account with no authorization from me whatsoever to pay someone's ( who I do not know ) account and they have refused to correct that grievous error. By the way, the amount incorrectly taken to pay another customers loan is {$140.00}. I called my XXXX XXXX to advise that is an unauthorized payment. XXXX has credited my account but now I have to fill out a claim form with them and they have to address it with Citizens Bank.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation