Frederic sent a message to Saun Bruce W Van – Chief Executive Officer, Citizens Bank RBS Citizens – Email Address that said:
World’s worst customer service!
Hi Bruce,
I feel compelled to let you know that your bank has the second worst customer service I have encountered in the banking and finance world! I had a home equity loan that I paid off in full on 5/3/16 at the local branch. I had a letter from Citizens that stated I had to pay $33.09 to close the account. I paid them, and later in the afternoon I was called back stating there was an error and Citizens actually owed me $7+/- and to come back to pick up my payment and I would receive the $7 in the mail in a month or so (never got it). I gave the branch a letter to close the account and signed your form requesting closure. I was doing this so that my Ex-wife could re-finance her home.
The branch actually called into customer service while I was there and faxed my letter and closing document to confirm that we were all set. I never gave it another thought until about two weeks ago the lender for my ex-wife needed the closing letter and her agent was unable to get it from Citizens.
Yesterday customer service said the account can’t be closed until a $25.00 fax fee is paid off. We sent in payment next day again thinking we were all set.
Today I spent an hour on the phone with various customer service people and their supervisors trying to extract a letter stating that the account is closed and has a $0 balance.
My wife is due to close in two days! The best that anyone in your bank could do was “we will call you back in 2-3 days to confirm payment and send a letter 10 days later.
I closed the account on 5/3 with all the proper documentation. Somehow the communication between the branch and customer service dropped the ball. I need a letter from Citizens today! By the way, the supervisors stated there was no one above them that could help with this.
I too am in the customer service world. If Citizens was a business with this attitude, they would not survive but as a bank I guess you are above giving service encounters that you take some responsibility for your errors.
By the way, the worst encounter I had was with Peoples Bank when I tried to clos an account I opened years ago when living in Bangor. Their customer service (after many excruciating attempts to get resolution at a lower level) wanted me to drive 4.5hours to close a $3.00 account where it originated. I will say that their CEO took great care and closed the account and apologized.
I hate to complain but when the service encounters are as poor as we have experienced here you can be sure that the old principal will always be there. People that encounter good to great service will tell a few friends about it but when we are handled poorly, we will tell dozens.
Sincerely,
Fritz
Fritz
VP Sales and Marketing
