August 2016 by Wayne U.
I want to start by saying that this Colebrook Branch has terrific employees. Without exception, these employees are helpful, professionals. I actually enjoy visiting the Colebrook branch just because of the employees. That being said, the bank as a whole, is simply awful, and reached a new low for me in recent weeks. I have a Citizens Bank Rewards credit card that had accrued over $200 in rewards dollar value. I decided to go online to try to redeem these points. I should add that I am certainly not a newbie when it comes to websites. I am a retired MIT Computer Scientist who has personally built several websites. On the Citizens website, there is a hyperlink that claims to allow you to redeem rewards points. But when I clicked on it, I was brought to a new and completely different Citizens Bank website. I was unable to log on to the website that I was directed to. I was unable to create a login on that secondary web site, and after about 40 minutes of frustration, I called the toll free Citizens help line. After playing automated voice mail Bingo I finally found the secretly buried code for reaching a human. I pressed the number that corresponded to reaching a human, and was put on 'Eternal Hold'. After being on hold for 30 minutes, the call was simply dropped. I reached my exasperation point, and managed to Google the mailing address for Citizens Customer Service in Bridgeport, CT. I took some time in writing a letter to Customer Service documenting the problems that I was experiencing in simply trying to redeem rewards points. I asked that a Citizens Bank human call me on the telephone, so that we could resolve the problem of my redeeming rewards points. I said that in the absence of my being able to resolve what ought to be a simple process, I would have no choice but to close out my Rewards account. I mailed the letter to Customer Service. Weeks after mailing the letter to Customer Service, I attempted to use the Rewards Card, and my purchase was declined. I was near Colebrook when the purchase was declined, and I decided to visit the Colebrook bank. I spoke with Tracy who tried to be very helpful. She called someone on the telephone to get an answer as to why my card was declined, and found that my Rewards account had been closed out. Tracy was unable to find out why the account had been closed out. I asked Tracy about redeeming my rewards points. She found out that because the account was closed, it was impossible to redeem rewards points, and that I would simply lose them. Tracy suggested that another bank, other than Citizens Bank, might have requested that my rewards account be closed. Since I had recently opened an account with another bank, I decided to do some detective work on my own. The following morning, I managed to call my new bank to find out if they had requested that my rewards account be closed at Citizens. They said that they had not made any sort of a request, and at my urging a 3-way conference call was established to get to the bottom of why my Citizens Bank Rewards MasterCard account had been closed. Citizens Bank said that it would take about a week to find out what letter had caused my account to be closed. The following week, I arrived home to find a voicemail from Citizens saying that my closed rewards account had been re-opened. There was no explanation on the voicemail, nor was there an apology for any inconvenience. I called back Citizens Bank to find out what had happened. Apparently when Customer Service had gotten my letter requesting that a human call me to resolve a problem, Citizens simply opted to close out my rewards account instead. Horrible customer service. But this is only the latest of many Citizens Bank fiascos. Twice I attempted to get a mortgage through Citizens Bank. I should add that I have a very high credit score. Both attempts resulted in frustration and I went elsewhere. Want to get a car loan? Unfortunately Citizens product line is very incomplete and they don't handle car loans.