Citizens Bank, Massachusetts

First of all what I'm about to describe is a scam that we accidentally stumbled into, which I do not blame the bank for. However the bank's communication led us to falling for the scam, and then they quickly backed out and said they were not responsible. Here is how it happened.

My wife runs a tutoring business teaching Mandarin. English is her second language but she knows it fairly well. She sometimes deals with foreigners and other folks who may not understand American customs.

One day she came to me saying that a client has given her more money than she asked for, to tutor someone down at the library. I was very busy and distracted, and I usually don't get involved in her business, but I noticed that it was a bank check she received was a LOT more than she asked for. I thought this was very strange, and it raised a red flag. I asked her to return it. Then she came back to me and said the client wanted her to cash it and forward the remainder via Western Union to the caretaker of the child who was to be tutored.

This made me angry and I nearly told her to tell her client "no" and returned it. I should have. Not appreciating this extra work, but needed my wife's income and not having time to deal with her business affairs, I strongly advised her to cash it and ask the bank to tell her when it CLEARS. I asked her to be very specific about that, it has to clear before we do anything else. She is very good about following instructions, she is a smart girl, and understood my intentions.

So she deposited the check with a teller at Citizen's Bank. She very clearly asked the teller to tell her when the check would clear. The teller then gave her a date. My wife returned home and gave me that date. I thought the date was too fast, but this being the digital age I decided the bank knew what it was doing.

On that date, we checked online and so no hold on the money, and no indication of a problem. The check seemed good. So my wife wired the remaining money ($3,500) to the party we were supposed to.

Several days go by and she goes to meet the "student" at the library. Nobody ever shows up. She returns home and contacts the client, who then says that he must cancel the tutoring, but to keep the money we already cashed.

Of course you can see where I'm going with this. The bank called us a WEEK later to tell us that the check was fraud. I hit the ceiling. I demanded to know why they said a check cleared when it didn't. They claimed that they did no such thing -- that they tell customers -- in good faith -- that a check is "cashable" after a certain date. That's why it seemed too fast. They asked us to redeposit the portion of the $3,500 that left us overdrawn, and at first I refused. They said the consequence for that would be that they sue us for it, taking NO RESPONSIBILITY for their poor communication.

Had they answered my wife's question ("when will the check CLEAR") this would not have happened. Having money become "available" is not the same thing as a check clearing. They gave us a date that we acted upon and we lost $3,500.

BTW: in a scam like this (which is very common, I found out, much to my embarrassment) the police do very little to catch the criminal. They found out where he was but did nothing with the authorities on the other end to catch him. That's why the scam is common: it depends on the banks not being clear (or not even communicating) when a check deposit is truly safe to withdraw from, and they depend on Western Union and banks taking no responsibility for being a party to the scam at all. All of these institutions allow these scams not only to continue but to thrive, shirking any legal participation or responsibility in the matter.

Frankly I think there is a legal case against a bank that gives us a bad date as to when a check HAS CLEARED. We can't possibly know when a check clears, we depend on the bank to give us that information. They give us a date, we act on it, then they retract that date and say it didn't clear after all and stick us with the money under threat of litigation.

Shouldn't there be some kind of consumer protection in such a deal?

I received a check for my son for $20.00 dollars so I went to the bank where the check is drawn from which was citizens bank, the teller asked me if I had an account with them and I said no, he then told me that there was A $7.00 fee to cash a check or I could open an account to avoid the fee. That's blackmail; I made a big scene and left, told my son to leave that bank.

I initiated a bill pay via the company's online banking service. The bill had a pay date of 09/15/2010, the same day my payroll deposit is posted. However, the bank posted this bill pay on 09/14/2010 to create an overdraft fee. They posted an overdraft fee the next day when my payroll deposit was posted.

Service rep at bank signed me up for Green-Sense program with 10 cents rebate on on-line/debit card transactions. Was told I had a debit card. 6 months in a row a customer service rep at the bank said I was signed up and had no idea why the bank wasn't paying the rebate as promised. Finally told I was not REALLY signed up. Their own tech support team told me the customer service reps were incompetent This program is a scam. It's time to change banks!

Six months of trips to the bank with much aggravation, loss of time, loss of rebate monies promised.

I have a checking account with them. I had a little misscommunication with my wife and she paid a bill when we didn't have enough money in there so I got charged over draft fees and I had other things that went through so I got charged even more over draft fees. I got a check and I couldn't spend it because it all went to the bank and I am still negative. I don't know why they charge so much.

People can't live and pay bills if they keep charging a rediculous amount. The ended up charging me about $600 dollars in over draft fee's. Right know my gas tank is empty and I have no money to get gas. They took all of my money. They economy is bad enough and they are not making anthing better by doin this to us. It makes me not want to have bank account. I feel stuck like a can't do anything about it. There needs to be a law against this. Banks should not be aloud to charge over draft fee's especcially if it leaves the consumer with no money to live on.

I have called and asked Citizens bank to decline my Debit Card if I use it without knowing the there is insufficient funds, but nothing was done since. Just happened recently during holliday shopping I did not know I had no funds in my account and kept using my card because was never declined. And then next day I checked my statement and $185 in fee for using my card. Some stuff I did buy for $3.00 I paid $25 for no funds but I was never told or the card declined. How can they fix this? Can you help me please

there is only so much Fraud that we Americans Can't Keep Up.

On December 07, 2001, I wrote a check off my Citibank Credit Card Account and asked my boyfriend to deposit it on my bank account at Citizens Bank. I am a full time student and also a full time worker; therefore my boyfriend and I try to help each other with our personal chores. He went to the "Five Corners" branch in Braintree and deposited check # 1004 at 2:30 p.m., for the amount of $3,000.00. The check had a promotional APR of 5.99% with no "check fees", and had expiration date of 12/10/01.

I needed to get this money out of my credit card account to pay for some urgent bills. I kept checking my balance at Citizen's bank every day and nothing was posted on my account until Tuesday, December 11, 2001. I called the bank and spoke with the woman named Cindy, who turned out to be the teller who processed the deposit on that Friday. She told me that I had to go to the bank with my deposit receipt and see her. Since I was already at work in Cambridge and my boyfriend was at UMASS-Boston, which is much closer to Cambridge, I called him and asked him to go back home, get the receipt and go back to solve this situation on my behalf. Sean (my boyfriend) got at the branch on that same morning and saw this lady named Cindy who called a couple numbers and finally called the manager, Diane Stewart. Ms. Stewart looked at her computer and told Sean that they didn't have any records of my deposit. She said that she was going to put a "search request" on that item and get back to me.

Sean, already very annoyed with the incompetence of this woman and her lack of customer service skills, told her that she needed to call me and let me know what was going on. She called me and told me that this "search request" could take up to 48 hours. This was already Tuesday, I had bills to pay and this $3,000.00 had just disappeared. I asked her if the bank was going to be reimbursing me for any charges, late fees payments and other financial losses I would incur due to the bank's error and her answer was simply "no". She told me that I had to wait for their search request response. On Wednesday, December 12, 2001, Diane Stewart called my work number and left a message saying that they didn't have the check and that I should place a stop payment on that check so nobody else would cash it.

I found this completely absurd. Who would cash this check, if it was deposited directly at the counter into my account using one of the bank's pre printed deposit slips that come at the back of the check books? It turns out that the check with the promotional APR that had used was one of a set of three checks that Citi Bank had sent me with the expiration of 12/10/01. I called Citi Bank on that same night and place a stop payment on the check. The problem is that I needed the money to pay bills, and now I had no other choice but uses a check from another credit card that will charge me a $50.00 fee for using the check and has APR of 7.9%. Citizen's Bank showed me the incompetence of their system and of their managers. This woman showed to have no managerial skills at all.

I have a degree in Management and now of my consumer rights as a customer. I want to be reimbursed for my financial losses by Citizen's Bank.