Citizens Bank Charter One Bank (formerly) Unnecessary overdraft fees/charges...nearly $80.00 in less than a week while carrying overdraft protection. $12.00 per transfer/transaction from savings account to checking, is supposed to be $6.00 per transfer/transaction. winterwiz Cleveland Ohio
My wife and I have maintained a joint checking and joint savings account originally with Charter One Bank, now currently Citizens Bank, for well over 20 years. They were always fair to deal with in the past until recent years. We had a feature enabled, Automatic Savings with Overdraft Protection that would move $50.00 from our checking account into our savings account, and if we overdrafted checking, the difference would be transferred from savings and we would incur a $6.00 fee for the transaction. Our complaint is that the fee escalated to $12.00 per transfer, applied 4 separate times, and still incurred a $35.00 overdraft fee for a total of $83.00 in less than one week.
I had made a cash deposit on a previous Saturday, which did not post until the following Monday. Upon viewing our account information online Monday evening, I had noticed that our savings account had a negative balance, which should not be the case ever, it should zero out. There was a positive balance in our checking account. I immediately made another cash deposit the following day to balance the account, and was then made aware of all of the fees we had incurred. Needless to say I was very upset, customer service was useless and I felt totally ripped off.
I never received any notice from them that there would be any shortage in either account. If I had been contacted I would have settled it as soon as I possibly could. Another issue we have is how and/or when they post transactions. Had my cash deposit on that Saturday posted immediately because it was cash, it would have covered any pending transactions. We are entirely dissatisfied with their current service and are closing our accounts.
4 Updates & Rebuttals
Robert
Irvine,California,
USA
And you just proved my point...
#5Consumer Comment
Wed, September 28, 2016
Your additional post just proved every one of my points about you not understanding how to manage a bank account.
It is their methods, as I have stated, of how they post transactions, i.e. in what order, and on what dates, or how long before being processed, and we also take this into consideration when evaluating our balances
This shows that not only do you not keep a written register, but you attempt to "float" funds where it is a case of spending money you don't have in the account and then trying to beat money back to the bank. These are all paths to Overdraft Town with a Stopover in Fee City.
As stated before you can NOT beat money back to the bank. The moment you swipe your debit/ATM card, write a check, or authorize an ACH transaction you have to figure that it could be taken out of your account. You can not "assume" you have even a few hours before it hits. If you do not have the money currently available in your account..do NOT spend the money. And the way you know what you have currently available is to keep a written register.
There are also quite a few other complaints about this issue and a couple of class action lawsuits that they have settled in the recent past.
Not a single suit has made the fees or posting order illegal. In fact as you have seen they have even increased their fees.
Bottom line is communication should be key, and I received none from Citizens Bank having signed up for online banking and text alerts (never received any texts),
No the "borttom line" is to take responsibilty over your account. Because a bank only can show balances of what it has received, and possible network issues outside of their control no bank will guarantee their "alert" service. In addition there isn't a single bank that will tell you that you can rely on their online banking 100%. Every single bank will tell you that it is just one "tool" and you should still keep a written register. In fact you will find that banks are quite open about this and if you go into a branch and ask they will probably even give you a written register and may even spend a few minutes showing you how to use one.
and we are taking our banking elsewhere, our decision, our choice and our prerogative.
- Yes it is, and unless you change your ways you will be back here reporting on that bank.
Jim
Florida,USA
There Is No Hope For You!
#5Consumer Comment
Tue, September 27, 2016
Robert very correctly told you the cause of the problem which is YOUR FAILURE to keep written records with an on going running balance! The on line figures are NOT acurrate and the bank will tell you so. The reason for this is the bank's computers DO NOT know of any debits until they hit the bank and before they hit the bank, YOU are spending that money thus causing an overdraft! However, if YOU were to properly manage YOUR account and subtract every use of the card or writing of a check, YOU would have accounted for any debits before they hit the bank! What you're doing now is using the account without having any idea of what the balance is. YOU give YOURSELF and overdraft fee then you come here to blame the big bad bank which is out to get little ole' you, right??? Unless you decide to properly manage your account, you'll continue to give yourself OD fees! This is why banks should increase those fees to $100 a pop because so many people are too lazy to properly manage their accounts! People have had accounts for years and years and have never had an OD fee all because they properly manage their accounts.
Response
#5Author of original report
Tue, September 27, 2016
As I stated, we were perfectly happy with Charter One for a long time. It is more recently that their service "went south". Also, I do check daily what is going on with our accounts...I note the posted transactions, the pending transactions, etc. and what our current balance should be.
It is their methods, as I have stated, of how they post transactions, i.e. in what order, and on what dates, or how long before being processed, and we also take this into consideration when evaluating our balances. There are definite incosistencies and nothing we have done was "intentional".
I do understand that Saturday is a non-banking day...my intent was to state that I had made a deposit, not to cover any shortages, and yes it posted on Monday. There are also quite a few other complaints about this issue and a couple of class action lawsuits that they have settled in the recent past.
Bottom line is communication should be key, and I received none from Citizens Bank having signed up for online banking and text alerts (never received any texts), and we are taking our banking elsewhere, our decision, our choice and our prerogative.
Robert
Irvine,California,
USA
You haven't learned a thing in 20 years
#5Consumer Comment
Tue, September 27, 2016
With your 20(plus?) years of banking you apparently haven't even learned the basics.
1. Saturday is NOT a banking day
2. You MUST keep an accurate Register
3. You can't beat money back to the bank.
Had you followed these basic rules you would not have had any of these issues.
You see one of your "complaints" is that if they had only posted the cash you deposited on Saturday all would be right with the world. Well actually had you kept an ACCURATE register and shown proper account management of YOUR account you would have known your balance, as well as what debits were coming in. Therfore avoiding this situation in the first place. So you could have either not made the transactions that would put you into a negative situation, or deposit the money on Friday to cover the upcoming debits.
But since you FAILED to do that, the overdraft policies of the bank went into affect to cover your overdraft. When your savings was depleated you defaulted to the "standard overdraft protection".
Now, if you are going to come here and say that you INTENTIONALLY overdrafted your account because you "thought" your savings would cover it. That is just plain idiodic. As while you think $12 is too much for this service...I'll tell you $1 is too much to pay and people that show proper management can go years(or even decades) without paying a single overdraft fee. Yes even people who live "paycheck to paycheck" because it is not about how much money you have, it is making sure you don't spend more than you have. If you have more going out than coming in that is not the fault of the bank and you need to find a way to fix that situation.
Oh and of course you can claim all day long that the old bank was so much nicer and cheaper fees. Well gues what they aren't around anymore are they....perhaps you should think of the connection between those two items. As I can guarantee you with the "well we have overdraft protection" mentality you have, you are just going to end up in the same boat with the new bank.
No RipOff here....unless you count the one you caused yourself.