I don't want to waste any more of my time on this matter, but I feel that this review is necessary.
I paid a large bill online on a Friday and realized on Sunday that it would overdraft my account by approximately one dollar. I transferred $20 from my other account immediately to cover the overdraft on my phone, but it never went through. I might not have hit the 'Confirm' button. I wish they had banking for your phone like the larger banks have.
BEAUTIFUL "UI" (
Within ONLY a few Visits to this Branch, I am NOT Just Another Account Number. Entryways from many different Areas Make It Quite Convenient For Right Downtown Columbia!
Regardless, my account went into the negative by 95 CENTS on Monday. I have a 9 to 5 job, so I decided to go into the bank after work to take care of the problem. Their drive thru was closed for maintenance and no one was there. So I waited till my lunch break on Tuesday to deposit $350 and the branch manager, Cetra Hemingway of the Myrtle Beach branch, informed me that they could not refund the $50 in charges that had occurred as a result of the 95 CENT overdraft, because it wasn't their fault.
During an extreme financial hardship after three years with a real estate loan from First Citizens, I called First Citizens here in Greenville, SC for help. They "helped" by trying to get me to switch all my savings/checking/retirement accounts to their bank and asking me what other assets I had....they even set up the appointment the same week, how nice of them. I caught on to what they were after, luckily, and told them I would consider transferring once my loan was extended. After struggling to pay that I called them a few months later and told them I could not pay the loan any more with a layoff, a pay reduction from my company, and medical bills piling up and I needed advice. "He", from the Parkway office, said there was "nothing we can do to help", not even a short sale. After advice from a lawyer, we stopped paying on the loan to support our family and make our house payment. First Citizens Bank has now hit us with a deficiency judgment for a amount that we barely have in our home equity and our two cars are valued at less than $4000 each. My lawyer said that they did not have to do the deficiency judgment and that they "screwed us good", his exact words. We are just trying to survive in this economy, our credit has ALWAYS been excellent until now, no one saw this coming. Me, my children and family will never do business with this bank again.....their "help" was only to their advantage, I feel they turned their back on us. I am guessing they want to push us out of our home and get maybe what we owe... and put us on the street?? That amount will not equal the loss of business if they treat everyone like this. Thank you for continuing to bill us for this, Columbia.
Now I've wasted even more time than I had intended.
I will have to research more before I decide on a different bank, but it will certainly happen this week. I am sorry for you, First Citizens. In order to avoid avoid being bought out by the larger banks, you will have to offer something that they do not. Obviously, you will not survive through better customer service.
I always prefer to support smaller/local business as opposed to the big companies that eat up smaller businesses. Unfortunately, I am going to put my money into one of those larger banks now, because I want to know that a .95 mistake will not cost me $50. Bank of America (one of the most complained about banks) told me that they do not charge an overdraft fee unless the account is overdrafted more than $10.
SIDE NOTE: They had apologized to me a couple months previous to this for their fraud department not catching a fraudulent charge on my account. They had reimbursed me immediately and apologized profusely. I was just happy that they were so helpful. When I brought up the mistake their fraud department made to the Cetra and explained that it didn't seem to fair to me that they were not penalized for a $600 mistake, but I was being penalized for a 95 CENT mistake, she simply said, 'The federal government requires that we reimburse for fraudulent charges.' So all the praise I gave to the bank earlier for helping me was a result of federal laws.
First Citizens Bank is a US Bank based in Columbia, South Carolina. First Citizens Bank is located at 1230 Main St, Columbia, SC 29201, USA.
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