Citizens Bank

Quite possibly the worst bank you will ever deal with, after being a customer for about 10 years or so, I decided to transfer to a different bank and close this account. Little did I know, closing an account is near-​impossible. I transferred all of my money out of the account on 11÷23÷15, bringing it to a zero-​balance. I then requested to close the account. At this point, I figured it was done with.
Unfortunately, the next day, a check I wrote weeks ago was attempted to be deposited by someone else. The check, of course, bounced. Suddenly, I was $ 70.00 negative in the account due to bounced check fees. I called and was told that I needed to rectify the account balance. Excellent. While waiting for the check to clear to close the account, the bank that attempted to deposit the check on the 24^th, tried again Friday (27^th). It cost me another $ 35.00, and now I need to cover that cost too.
Because the bank trying to deposit the check does not look like it is going to stop, I’m just going to write a check to cover that check and more until I can verify that no more money is coming out of the account.
After talking to another Citizens Bank rep, apparently if any money enters, or is deducted from the account up to 60 days after the account is closed, it will automatically re-​open. So don’t worry customer, a «closed» bank account isn’t really closed.
Prior to this, Citizens had incorrectly charged me $ 80.00 in fees for a Money Market account because they «Forgot to link it to the checking account». I was told I would be re-​imbursed those fees, but never was.
Bottom line, look elsewhere for a bank. Citizens will lie to you, and charge you for fees whether they should, or should not. Utterly awful.

This concerns the branch on 429 Harvard Street. I am the Power of Attorney for my 95 year old father. For the past10 months i have been «working» with this bank to be able to transfer money between my Dad’s accounts in order to pay his nursing home bills. This is being done long distance because I am in California and the bank is in Brookline, MA. Last month, Dianna Taksir, one of the special bankers, told me I needed signature cards to put with the accounts. She never sent them to me, then told me she was no longer my banker and promised to get me the name of my new «personal» banker. Never happened; never heard from her despite numerous phone calls and emails. Finally spoke with Mr Knotke, the manager of the branch. It took 2 weeks for them to tell me they could not locate my POA documents which had been sent twice before. After sending them the third time, I had to call his office (despite his promise to call me) again after not hearing from him. I was told by an assistant that despite their receiving a signature card from me (they only sent me one), I had to fill out a signature card for each account. Why didn’t they just send me the paperwork as soon as they know this and why do I have to keep calling. Because I cannot access all the account, my father’s bills are overdue through the fault of the bank. This is the WORST customer service I have ever experienced

I made more than $ 500 deposit with several checks, and then found out my account turned to negative, $-106!
I went to the branch nearby. Two assistants and one manager spent more than 15 mins to figure that they mistakenly mistakenly rejected my two checks, and charged $ 20 for each. Then, why did I get $-106 instead of $-40? After standing there for another 30 mins, I got an answer that they don’t know and I have to wait until the end of the month to know why.
Ok, that’s the most frustrating experience I ever had with a bank. How could I trust a bank who always steal my money secretly? Let alone those «mistakes» and incompetent employees.

Beware of Corporate Citizen’s Bank related to Retaliation for Posting Information and Reviews about a Security Breach in Online/​Telephone Banking and for filing with the Attorney General:
Five days ago I received a letter in the mail stating that all my bank accounts (mine, my husband, both our businesses, savings, and all four children’s accounts) would be summarily closed in 10 days, no reason given. I have been a customer at Citizen’s Bank for 15 plus years with impeccable credit and have never even bounced a check or had a late payment. Apparently it is Citizen’s prerogative and they can close your accounts with NO notice and for No reason! Apparently when I signed up 15 plus years ago, there was a box to check that allows them to do this, go figure?
Nonetheless I do KNOW the reason why Corporate Citizen’s closed all my accounts !!! I have repeatedly written on social media, written to the AG about a MAJOR Security Issue at Citizen’s Bank and I believe shutting all my accounts is in RETALIATION for alerting other customers to the security flaw. The back story is: in August 2014, five of my linked bank accounts were compromised. Someone called Citizen’s on an inside line (pretext calling) and said they were sitting with my husband in the local branch and that he needed help setting up online banking. Neither of us bank online. All the caller needed was the last four of my social, then they set up a phoney email address and password, and voila they were into ALL my family and business linked accounts. Funniest thing that call was NEVER recorded, very odd since generally every time I call the bank I hear «you are on a recorded line». Once they got in, $ 30,000 was transferred/​borrowed from a Home Equity Credit Line (who has $ 30,000 sitting around anyway) into linked accounts and then they went to ATM’s in Dorchester and Milton and in 6 hours withdrew $ 30,000 in increments of $ 600 and NO ALGORITHM at Citizen’s picked this up??? I, the lowly customer, happened to notice the activity when I checked my balances that day! I don’t know about you but I have NEVER been able to withdraw more than $ 400 in a given day without getting shut down. Needless to say, this is a major security breach. Citizen’s was clearly at fault and after two weeks returned the $ 30,000 to my credit line and only after I filed numerous police reports. However, the bank has consistently passed the buck by both not returning repeated phone calls and by not repairing the online/​telephone banking issue. Also since the breach, my social security number along with my entire family, DOB, address have all been compromised. I have had to file Fraud Alerts and have had to put a Freeze on all of our Credit Reports for 7 years. At no time did Corporate Citizen’s Bank, Frank Gomes in particular in the Office of the Chairman, ever take my calls, offer to help, give advice or even TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for the Security Breach and/​or consider paying for Life Lock or some such plan ($ 10 per month). In fact, I only spoke with Frank Gomes once or twice (my supposed point person at Citizen’s) and he never returned any of my urgent calls even when I received the letter about the closing of all my accounts. Terrible customer service at Citizen’s Bank on the highest Corporate level. I have no problem with the line staff/​tellers in the branches. They are doing the best they can given the circumstances.

This review is for Citizens Bank in general and not this location specifically. Tend to be unfriendly and impersonable. Clerks Not always knowledgeable about bank policies. They charge a lot of fees. Also, my debit card expires at the end of this month. I am still waiting for my replacement card to arrive in the mail as well.

I will never, ever, use Citizens Bank again. The customer service is terrible, and if you ever intend to close your account after moving they make it next to impossible. Moreover, the fees they charged me were higher than what I am currently charged by the «big bank» I currently use. Bad experiences, bad service, and simply a bad decision by me to use Citizens Bank.

I joined the Citizen bank for 1^st home buyer mortgage, Kate McGahan just NOT helpful AT ALL.
At the beginning she is nice and said she had 35 something year experience, and give us a low rate.
We start apply for mortgage, and realized the application form from her had lots of mistake, eg: the interest rate is not fixed. and when we email her and contact her for a updated form, she just said we can use ink pen to cross it out.
By the time we wait for the adjustment format, she contact us and stated we are out of the mortgage apply process, bc we didn’t mail her back the application package, BUT how can we sign for a package with wrong information???
We have to go back to the apply process again, and every couple days,
she will ask for paper, document, and every week
Our closing date is coming soon and she still asking for paper that we ALREADY provided at least once if it s not more.
Even after 35 years of experience she is still incompetent and unorganized.
In addition to that, she is extremely rude when you will contact her by phone.
Also don t forget to double check when you have an appointment with you because she might forget about it.
She is not really follow up your case and send you email suddenly and ask for some paper from seller or agency which is not leader’s job.
If you apply mortgage from Citizen bank with Kate McGahan’s help, please expect that you will have a long journal and lots of tears after.

I took a $ 3900 check from a Citizens Bank customer. When I tried to cash it, they wanted a $ 9 fee, my fingerprints, and wouldn’t give me the cash for 24 hours! When I complained to the manager I was told to adhere to the bank’s policy or cash the check somewhere else. IT WAS DRAWN ON THEIR BANK! Why should I have to pay a fee or cash it somewhere else. This is a horrible bank! NEVER take a check from a Citizens Bank customer.

Customer service blows. I spent a couple of weeks supplying all that was required for payments to be automatically deducted from a business account. Unlike any other vendor, they required a signed letter from our bank and a document signed by all signers on that business account. No biggie, as it’s for protection, but definitely more challenging to get this vendor money than any other vendor. Last month, I was assured days before the payment was due that we’d provided everything and that auto-​debits would commence. The payment was not automatically deducted as scheduled, so I called. No one could explain why the payment didn’t go through, so I made a phone payment to keep the account current. They refuse to waive the phone processing fee, even though I was assured in advance that auto-​debits would commence. Most reps I’ve spoken with since this loan commenced last summer have been pretty rude, so it’s just their corporate culture.

They were just fine until I moved across country and needed to close out my account. At that point I called to ask for assistance with the closure. I was told, in broken english, that I would be required to mail them a notarized letter. This is the sort of thing I’ve always been able to handle over the phone before (even with the much hated BofA). Get your customer service act together Citizens Bank. You’re coming off like a bunch of unnecessarily difficult pricks.

I wish I could give negative stars. We used Kate McGahan at the Harvard Square brand to buy a home. She made SO many mistakes and was OFTEN MIA which resulted in us almost losing our dream home. She caused much undue stress and tears. She has been working for 25 years and we thought someone her age with that much experience might not treat us like another small deal to glaze over. Well she didn’t, but it was more a problems that she couldn’t keep up with everything that happened with our deal. Trust me… go with a smaller local bank!

I can’t wait to leave Citizens Bank. I am reviewing this branch because I opened my account here, but this review applies equally to the bank as a whole.
Citizens Bank and I have not had a good run. Yes, in the begining there were the usual problems, the *insane* overdraft fees, which on one occasion added up to nearly $ 200 for a $ 6 overdraft. But that was my own fault and I should have been more careful. But then they started throwing other tricks my way. My debit card has been de-​activated 3 times for no apparent reason that anyone can tell me, when my accounts have been in good standing, and no apology for the mistake either.
But my current situation takes the cake. This time, Citizens Bank is trying to charge me over $ 100 in fees for an overdraft that never happened. I simply went in to make a deposit one day and found that my balance didn’t add up. So upon looking into the problem, there it was, two separate fees totalling over $ 100, for claimed overdrafts, even though my account was in a positive balance the entire time and contained more than enough to cover everything. After several attempts on the phone, someone finally admitted to me that the bank had in fact made an error. So I trotted off to my local JP branch, hoping they would put it right. I explained my problem, they said they agreed, and would submit it to the regional manager, who should fix it within a week. After 3 weeks without it being fixed, I went to this lovely Harvard Square branch to check in, and was told by some complete dolt that there was no problem, and that nobody would be fixing anything. I am at my wit’s end with these people and don’t know what I have to do next to get them to give me my money back. Citizens bank steals your money!

I’m leaving soon. They’re fees are horrible and I the customer service is bad… ESPECIALLY ON TREMONT/​BEACON STREET in Boston.
I left Bank of America for this??? Citizen’s now rank as 1a on my worse banks list… Yes, BOA is 1…

Citizens has been okay to me, nowhere near as friendly and helpful as my hometown credit union but that’s to be expected I guess. The thing that annoys me right now and motivated me to Unilocal is that I have not been able to get my Citizens accounts onto
. (It appears to be possible to get loan accounts from Citizens onto
but not checking/​savings.) I suspect this is due to technical features of the Citizens website’s security; perhaps Citizens would say their site is too secure to participate in
. But as a customer who wants to use mint this is unfortunate. With other major banks you can keep track of your accounts this way but not as of yet with Citizens.

Citizens bank has been very good to me. I can’t tell you the number of Boston based banks i have had. Bay bank, bank Boston, Cambridgeport bank, and Citizens ranks right at the top. They couldn’t be more useful, and attentive. Their banking staff is excellent at looking at your own personal situation, and putting you in a place that is best for you. I give them an A+. Also, they currently have the highest money market interest yield that I could find in the area. I trust them with my money, you should as well! My only problem with them is that I liked the old Harvard location better, you could very easily illegally park at the old bank, the new one is a real hastle for those of us who drive everywhere.