Citizens Bank Priorities
Larry Fish, CEO & Chairman Citizens Financial Group
One Citizens Plaza
RDC 575
Riverside, RI 02915
Dear Larry:
I’m writing to you today out of hope that perhaps you are unaware of how frustrated at least one of your new customers has become after transferring my accounts from Bank of America to Citizens Bank.
Integration between my personal checking account and Quicken is a critical feature for me. After confirming that this service was offered by Citizens, and hearing good things about how the bank treats its customers, in November of 2005 I opened a personal checking account and purchased a $5,000 CD to offset monthly fees. While Quicken integration wasn’t simple to set up, I was fully connected to my new account within a few days and happy.
In December, my local Hudson, MA branch office convinced me to add a business checking account with a promise that it would also provide Quicken integration at no additional monthly fee. That was the last time I have been able to access either account from Quicken.
With the help of many technical support reps, among whom Lori Evans and Steve Schonberger were most helpful, the problem was finally traced to the unique file assigned to my tax ID within your bank’s data center that had acquired an invalid property setting which could now not be changed without a software fix.
I have been tracking case number 25955 through your technical support department for several months now. There has been no action to solve the problem. The problem has not even been assigned a priority. I’m told that the bank is far more interested in their customers who make use of the Bank’s own web site than it is in customers using Quicken or Microsoft Money, and that your CIO has made the priority call to ignore “PFM” issues for the time being.
In addition to mailing this letter to you today by first class mail, I am also posting it to the web so that other potential customers can be made aware of your bank’s priorities. It can be found at http://tonesnotes.org/2006/02/22/citizens-bank-priorities. I will be happy to append any reply I receive from you to that posting as well as any resolution to the problem that may occur.