First Citizens Bank - Olde Raleigh Branch

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  We encountered deceitful business practices, contradictory actions, unprofessionalism, and outdated banking systems.

  Rating: 1/10 | Reviewer: abusinessowner | Date: 2.14.2014

  The employees and management of First Citizens Bank, particularly the Olde Raleigh Village branch, have been deceptive, patronizing, and outright insulting. We transferred our multi million-dollar business bank account to First Citizens (FC) from a larger institution anticipating a friendly, “local” atmosphere with attention to detail and a personable staff. Unfortunately, we encountered a bank that cannot complete basic banking needs. FC repeatedly frustrated our company and our customers with its archaic banking structure and rude, offensive employees. There is a lack of transparency and communication, from the tellers, to the Operations Manager (a teller with too much power), to the Branch Manager (newly transferred with no understanding of how FC works), to the apparently non-existent Regional Operations Manager. We struggled with some of the Olde Raleigh Village branch employees for weeks even though we always approached them professionally. Therefore, I visited other branches for help. I was promised at the main branch on Fayetteville Rd. that the Regional Operations Manager would contact me to assist in resolving the issues with personnel at Olde Raleigh. After repeated attempts to follow up, I never received a call or email. They refused to provide her contact information so I could not reach out directly. When reviewing our proposal before opening the account, we were told that their outdated (circa 1998) business web portal, would be updated in a month or two; however, this never occurred. There is no live account updating so it is always a day behind. There is no way to see who sent a wire without paying a $5.00 “research” fee PER wire, which can only be requested at the branch where the account was created. There is no way to see to whom a wire was sent. There are no check images on statements. One can pay $30+ per month for a CD with check images, but it's unreasonable to expect customers to pay $360 a year for what is a standard service at other banks. If one didn't sign up for this initially, FC will not provide the images if requested later. Additionally, their form of fraud prevention is to put a hard hold on the account, which prevents any use of the account without visiting the branch where the account was opened. After approximately three months with FC, we received a letter from the Operations Manager (OM) stating they were going to close our account in 10 business days. No explanation or reason was given. They would not explain further other than stating the “back office” deemed it as such. They would not supply contact information for the “back office”. The OM immediately became impossible to interact with and went out of her way to cause us excessive trouble. The OM arbitrarily denied checks and charges on our debit card resulting in expensive returned check and chargeback fees. As the account closure approached, she became increasingly hostile and irrational. She threatened to close the account early for no reason, held her hand up in my face and refused to speak with me, and enjoyed abusing her authority by taking liberties to personally cause our business to suffer. The last day the account was open, the OM and the Branch Manager promised that any outstanding checks or debits would clear our account, but we were lied to. They closed the account permanently without notifying us and refused to let several items clear, again resulting in fees and unhappy vendors. It is difficult to understand how First Citizens can successfully exist with this lack of infrastructure, technology, professionalism, integrity, and honesty. No manager seemed to be interested in our business. This consistent poor performance contrasts greatly with our new bank. I strongly discourage anyone from opening any account here due to the horrific experiences we had and the deceitful nature of some employees.