I have an ongoing problem with Citizens Bank gift cards. The bottom line is this: they cancelled my two active gift card before their expiration date, but they continued to charge me a monthly 'service charge' for these cards, cards which were no longer in service. Think about that: a service fee when they had cancelled the service! When I complained, they refused to reimburse me for service charges on the out of service cards. Doesn't a service charge mean that you are paying for a service? If Citizens cancelled the service (i.e. use of the gift cards), how can the service fee continue to be charged?

I am just as angry about the very poor way I have been treated. Citizens could have made it easy to find out that the cards had been deactived, but they did not. I used the card and it didn't go thru at one business. Odd I thought, so I tried a second time, different place, a few weeks later. Still no luck. I went to the citizensbankgiftcard.com website, typed in my card info, and all looked fine (i.e. there was money on the cards). Figuring my website verification might have activated something on my cards, a few weeks later I tried a purchase again, and still no luck. I tried the 800#. There was no option to talk to an operator, and pressing 0 did nothing, but I keyed in my card info, and the system said there was money on the cards. I shopped again. No luck again. Back to the 800# to do the optional card registration, figuring this might solve my problem. I was surprised that this option lead to a human operator, who told me that citizens had cancelled the cards.

I was sent checks for the card balance LESS card service charges. The 800# person gave me a Massachusetts Citizens bank address to write to for service charge reimbursement. I wrote. Citizens ignored my letter. They didn't even respond! Am I not worthy of a response? I emailed Citizens customer service. They said they couldn't help me, but gave me an address, this time in Atlanta, to send yet another letter to. I did so. Once again, I never got a response! I am pretty shocked at this. Is this the practice now, to just ignore letters from customers? I wrote to the places Citizens told me to write to, and they just ignored me.

I didn't give up though. I wrote to the head of Citizens at their Providence HQ and I actually, finally, got a response. It was a short letter saying that Citizens was just following service charge policy as outlined in the gift card rules they had attached to the letter. They presented no justification for charging a service charge for cards that they had taken out of service, nor did their gift card rules address this situation. What I felt even more disappointed about was that Citizens HQ did not offer one word of apology for ignoring both of my previous letters, when I had sent those letters to the very people Citizens told me to contact in order to resolve this issue. Ignoring a customer letter once is bad enough, but twice is pretty rotten, and then failing to apologize when I told them about this says to me that the people at Citizens HQ care very little about their customers.

I know I share blame, as service charges don't start until the "13th month after issuance". I got the two $300 giftcards from my siblings. It was their way of thanking me for taking care of our 92 year-old mother as she needed 24/7 care, and my job had been outsourced to India, so I had time to do so. To be honest I felt guilty taking money from my siblings to take care of our mother so I just had a hard time using the gift cards. Weird, I know, but it didn't sit right with me. I did use one of the cards once, but after that I just put them aside.


I lost $45 in service charges ($2.50/mo for 9 months, on two cards). The 800# person told me that Citizens cancelled the cards on 6/3/2009, and I got my check, less service fees, in December 2009. Of the nine months of service fees, 3 months were while the card was active, and 6 months (June thru December) are service charges on cards that had been put out of service. Those service fees bought me nothing but bad service! They made it so difficult even to find out why my cards were suddenly not working, and they expect me to pay them service fees for all this aggravation. It is beyond belief to me that Citizens would, when I have repeatedly presented them with these facts, all the way up to the very top of the corporation, would not make things right. I am really very surprised how little they care about doing the right thing for their customers, and it is obvious that this poor attitude is prevalent at the very top of the corporate ladder.

I am left to again ponder the question in Citizens online ads: “Is this how you define a good bank?”

I keep threatening to leave and switch to another bank... why don't I have the guts to actually do it?!? Citizens routinely screws me over and steals my hard-earned money and I somehow am too freaked out by the giant task of switching banks that I let them continue to rob and beat me.

I don't understand how their practices of altering "posting" & "clearing" dates can possibly be legal... They find ways to post things out of order just so you drop below $0 with the possibility of having the most items post/clear after $0 to rack up as many overdraft fees as possible. Great, my account is below $0 already, I'm living check to check, and now I've got close to $200 in fees? Way to go Billion dollar conglomerate, way to make the working man feel real good about themselves! I didn't need to eat this week... They are dishonest, lacking compassion, have terrible customer service, and are money hungry.

A warning as well: when you are attempting to cover a check, bill, etc. by making an after-hours deposit for the next morning, do NOT do it at the ATM. Put it in that drop-box instead, as the ATM envelopes apparently do not get picked up everyday! REALLY! The employees are too lazy to walk outside to get the envelopes to deposit our money to make sure our checks, bills don't bounce, so that they can once again charge us ANOTHER FEE!!! Think they planned that? Yup...

So, have I finally had enough to switch all my bills, all my direct deposits/withdrawals, and all that jazz?!? I think my time has finally come after 15 years, it's over Citizens, it's over!

I bounced 1 check which should have omly cost me $38.00. Citizens bank said all ny smaller debit puechases would have ro be cleared after the bounced check even though they were made after the chech was presented. I then recieved a $38.00 overdraft fee for all 10 debit purhases costing me almost $400.00 in fees. A sinilar occurence happend a few months late costing me $200.00. All in all Citizens has taken close to a $1000.00 in overdraft fees. They have also cleared payment on debit purchases when ther were no funds available and rhen charged me an overdraft fee the next day. I would like to join the class action suit against them.

I made a payment to time warner cable on the fourth of this month using my debit card, and it was charged to my account. Now the bank has put the exact same amount on hold to pay again on the 8th, this puts my account in over draft, and I will have that fee along with another one for another payment that has not come out yet. I called time warner and they have no record of any payment due or pending. By the time this is all said and done the bank will expect me to pay $74 dollars in overdraft fees, and that is only for 1 week. I am on SSI/SSD and do not have the money for this. I am very upset and wish I could afford a lawyer to go after this bank as this is the fourth time in 3 months they put something on hold and overdraft my account. I thought they could not do this any more, but they say they can and any money I put in they will automatically take out what is owed to them. Any suggestions?

I opened a checking account last December to take advantage of their $100 promotion. I completed all required actions.

Firstly, the customer service told me the bonus would be credited by Feb 28. I was charged $100 for overdrafting by account in early March. The bank only refunded $25. But if had the bonus in my account as promised, I would not have to pay for any overfees.

Secondly I received a message from the bank, saying that the corrected the system and the bonus *will* be credited by 4/15. I specially confirmed with them I satify all conditions of receiving the bonus. Now it's already 4/20 I still have not heard anything from them.

Citizens Bank is a bank that never keeps their promises. I'd close the account after I earned enough from their Green$ense.