Citizens Bank, not to be confused with Citizens Bank (Conflicting business names)

[Otter Mii-kun]

Ever come across a business somewhere (usually very far from home) with a name that you're familiar with, only to find out that said establishment is a completely different and unrelated operation than the business with that same name that you're already familiar with?


When I was in high school, my computer applications teacher asked our class to look up "Citizens Bank", known in my area as being headquartered in Flint, Michigan, with a "weather ball" on top of its headquarters building. When I typed in the URL that I thought was the correct one, I was directed to another Citizens Bank, with a green color scheme (as opposed the red used by Flint's CB), a different logo, and the slogan "Not your typical bank".
Turns out, the Citizens Bank with the "Not your typical bank" slogan was based primarily in the Northeastern United States, controlled by the Royal Bank of Scotland, and in 2004, they acquired Charter One, which had branches in the Great Lakes region. Because of the aforementioned incarnation of Citizens in Flint, Citizens Financial Group (the "not your typical bank") opted to keep the Charter One name on the newly acquired banks whose locations were in Michigan and other states that had the Flint-based Citizens operate branches in.

Eventually, in 2013, the Flint bank, last officially known as "Citizens Republic Bancorp", merged into Akron, Ohio-based FirstMerit Bank, ending the legacy Citizens Bank associated with the region for good. As a result, Citizens Financial eventually rebranded all remaining Charter One branches as "Citizens Bank". (FirstMerit itself was acquired by Huntington National Bank last summer.)

[Suicune's Fire]

It's not really the same, but there's a shopping centre near me which is my go-to, but there's also one in Tasmania (another state) by the same name. One time it was a public holiday and I called up a store inside the shopping centre to ask if they were open, only to reailse after a few seconds that I had called the one in Tasmania. Oops. It was pretty funny though. xD