Consumer complaint received 2022-11-18
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Managing an account — Deposits and withdrawals
Company: CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP, INC. (DE)

In XX/XX/2022, my husband and I opened our first joint checking account at Citizen 's Bank. We deposited {$20000.00} into the account. During our initial meeting, we were told the benefits of the account, which included fraud protection and alerts. We feel that other disclosures were quickly flipped to the " signature '' page and no other information reviewed. 

My husband and I made minimal transactions on the account, even explaining as we were opening the account that we were putting our savings aside for future plans and we wouldn't be frequently using the account. We made two small deposits and two small withdrawals, all within the state of Delaware where we are located. 

During this entire time, we received no statements, alerts, or notifications to our home address, either of our emails, or either of our cell phone numbers. 

After a busy period of time ( we are both public school employees working in a post-pandemic school system and this is the totality of our joint savings ) I went into the account to deposit a check, and found that a few months prior right after I had last checked the account almost all of our money was transferred out. We called, alerted the bank to this, and met with a branch banker the next day. We were repeatedly told to not worry, that the funds would be in our account within 10 days. 

After some elapsed time of me trying to be patient, Citizen 's Bank was unreliable with communication attempts. I struggled to get information and contact back from the bank. Communication, voicemails and emails went unanswered. Finally, when I went into the bank, a bank employee read off her screen a completely incorrect address for me, one I didn't provide and hadn't lived at for over six years. She told me that sometimes old addresses " autopopulate '' on their end, and that correspondence with my private information could have been going to this address I didn't even live at.

I have recently been told that because I did not report the fraud quickly enough, that I may not get my funds back, which conflicts with what I was originally told when I reported the fraud. Later, I was also told the claim was not being denied due to lapsed time, but now I am once again receiving conflicting information. While we understand there was a lapse in time in when we found the error, we are trying to get answers from Citizen 's Bank as to why there is not any responsibility on them to provide us with the services we signed up for, particularly the fraud alerts and communication. Presently, we have been frankly told that despite us being " sold '' on signing up for a checking account that we thought had fraud alerts and protections, that they did not actually have any responsibility to provide those services to us, but we had the responsibility to catch the fraud and they did not have to bear the responsibility of either catching fraud OR bear any responsibility for a security breach that allowed our account to be accessed. 
In sum our main concerns are : -We were told our money would be safeguarded in a Citizen 's account -We were told we had fraud protection -We were told we had XXXX fraud alerts -We did not even leave the house with our debit cards, so the security breach of our account being accessed was a failure within Citizen 's security system -Who approved at Citizens these ACH/wire transfers from our account? No one will give us any more information on these transactions than what we can see on our accounts.

-Why were we not notified of {$19000.00} being transferred out in a day?

-Why was it brushed over that they had an address attached to my name that I had never given to them, nor is on the drivers license I gave them?

-A complete disregard and lack of communication to customers that just had their life savings drained after signing up for their bank.

We have also asked to speak to higher up employees at Citizen 's Bank, and the regional manager has never responded to voicemails. When we asked to speak to whatever " back office '' has our claim, we are told that they can not give us this information and they themselves do not even have it. When we said that we were not confident in using our Citizens account while this was being resolved, we were told that we must continue to use our Citizen 's account in the meantime, or else they will charge us {$12.00} in service fees a month. So far, after many failed communication attempts we have found one reliable branch manager to at least call us back but even still she has only been able to just keep telling us it is in limbo.

Timeline : XX/XX/2022 : Open Account XX/XX/2022 : 1 fraudulent deposit totaling : {$150.00} XX/XX/2022 : 1 fraudulent deposit totaling : {$1300.00} XX/XX/2022 : 8 fraudulent deposits totaling : {$1.00} XX/XX/2022 : 11 fraudulent withdrawal transfers totaling : {$19000.00} XX/XX/2022 : 4 fraudulent withdrawal transfers totaling : {$1.00} XX/XX/2022 : 4 fraudulent withdrawal transfers totaling : {$380.00} XX/XX/2022 : we discovered fraud, reported it -- I also have a continual records of communication, attempts, and discussions XX/XX/2022 : 2 claims recovered from XX/XX/2022 : {$180.00} XX/XX/2022 : 1 claim recovered from XX/XX/2022 : {$100.00}