I've been a long time customer of Citizen's Bank. Since then things have only gone downhill. With the banking and economic "crisis" financial institutions are facing now, Citizen's have reverted to changing the average customer to make up for their bad business decisions.
When I started with Citizen's I was very happy with how they worked. They always keep the customer first and agents on the phone would make sure people were happy. These days it's more a how can I screw the customer attitude from Citizen's Bank.
I live check to check as many people do. I also make sure not to charge things with my debit card if I don't have the money available. Sometimes, if I know my direct deposit is going through and I have something pending, I'll still buy a pack of smokes if I need them. Unfortunately, Citizen's has adopted a new business plan to charge customers the most overdrafts possible by ordering the transactions I make from highest amount to lowest amount.
So if I had $500 in my account and I bought a pack of cigarettes, I paid a bill online for the amount of $395 and another for $100, knowing my direct deposit was the next day, I would get two overdraft fees, one because the $5.95 for cigarettes was not available because the $395 was pending and another for the $100 pending because the cigarettes (after the $395) caused me to only have $99.05 to cover the $100 EVEN THOUGH NO PAYMENT POSTED TO MY ACCOUNT YET.
Citizen's used to allow such things to happen without overdrafting me, I knew my direct deposit would be in the next day so I'd buy some smokes. They changed their rules and accommodated everyone with a legal verbiage contact to inform us that didn't even say the truth.
Citizen's Bank will order your transactions, regardless of how you make them, in the order that causes the most possible overdraft fees against you. Most times it makes no sense besides them wanting to charge you overdraft fees. I agree that sometimes it is my fault, but they have overturned a few overdrafts they applied due to "banking errors". Now they are denying anything being a "banking error" and placing the blame on the customer. I had to fight with the agent on the phone for nearly 20 minutes one day for her to actually credit my account back because of a "banking error".
So in closing, if you are a person living check to check, don't go with Citizen's. You'll be sorry if you do.
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