Citizens Bank

Citizens Bank arbitrarily decided to deactivate my debit/ATM check card -- without waiting for me to activate the new card (which I knew nothing about and had yet to receive). I confirmed with one of their CSRs that this was a matter of policy, and not a random/unanticipated human or machine error on their part.



As a result, lacking bus or taxi fare and without any other resources at my disposal, I ultimately had to walk 45 minutes to get home that evening (I was fortunate it wasn't snowing at the time).



I have rarely been so furious in my entire life.



I was genuinely astounded that anyone -- at any level, let alone at the management level a decision like this would have had to originate from -- in a large modern financial services company could either (1) not be aware that they risked seriously inconveniencing (or worse) a certain percentage of their customers under a policy like this, or (2) simply decided to go forward with this kind of policy regardless of the obvious implications for some of their customers (e.g., anyone who might be out of town or out of the country, anyone with multiple homes, anyone in the middle of relocating, etc.).



This was exceedingly poor decision-making on the part of Citizens Bank; and I am more than inclined to actively try and identify the party(ies) responsible for it and see what kind of justification they try and come up with.