Consumer complaint received 2023-08-05
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Closing an account — Can't close your account
Company: CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP, INC. (NY)

The following information represents a true and correct statement of facts as they pertain to a series of improper and unauthorized financial transactions by Citizens Bank , N.A. ( Citizens ) : - At no time did I open a Citizens account. However, I had been a customer of XXXX XXXX  XXXX ( XXXX ) since XXXX after its acquisition of XXXX XXXX XXXX, and, until Citizens acquired XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX in XX/XX/XXXX. 
- Days prior to the acquisition, I paid off the balance of the over-draft protection on my XXXX account, and withdrew {$22000.00} from the checking account, which left a balance of {$180.00}. 
- Late XX/XX/XXXX, in anticipation of the acquisition, I opened a checking account with XXXX XXXX ( XXXX ) ; my first transaction at XXXX was the deposit of the withdrawn amount. 
- MidXXXX, I changed my direct deposits from XXXX to XXXX. Additionally, both by online procedure and by phone notification, I set up my automatic and manual payments with either the new XXXX debit card or bank account information. 
- At no time did I make available, by online process or phone call, the Citizens account information ( i.e., new bank account number and routing number ) for electronic payments to merchants and service providers. 
- At no time did I authorize Citizens to make payments to merchants and service providers on my behalf. 
- Late XXXX, I contacted Citizens to request that they officially close the account and send me the remaining funds. 
- It was at that time I was informed that the Citizens account was in a state of negative balance due to unauthorized payments made to XXXX XXXX XXXX ( XXXX ) ; penalties began to accrue on the account. 
- Citizens negligently failed to notify me of the unauthorized payments, the resulting negative balance, status of an account that I thought was inactive, accruing penalties, etc. 
- Early XX/XX/XXXX, and after Citizens admitted to unauthorized financial transactions, the bank, once again, made an unauthorized payment to XXXX. 
- Several calls later, I was finally advised by a representative to speak to someone in the Office of the Chairman ; the representative submitted the request and said that I should receive a call within 48 hours to address this urgent matter. 
- A month later, having not received a call from the Office of the ChairmaXXXX, I called the customer service number once again. This time, the representative, on a recorded line, offered to, herself, reverse the unauthorized payments, and put the balance back to {$180.00}. Once the process was completed, I could then close the account and I would receive the remaining funds. ( Please note : I was not contacted by the Office of the Chairman until four months later. ) - Subsequently, XXXX notified me that a couple of the payments were returned because of a request made by Citizens, and returned payment fees would be applied to the account. 
- Citizens, who was not authorized to make payments to XXXX in the first place was, likewise, not authorized to request a return of the payments from XXXX. 
- A XXXX representative informed me that when Citizens requested the return of payments, the reason the bank gave was that such payments had not been authorized ; thus Citizens inadvertently admitted to committing federal bank crimes that involved engaging in unauthorized financial transactions.