Can confirm. US (dual) citizen living in Europe. Increasingly banks here will not take US citizens as customers as it is too annoying for them to deal with.

Worse than that, they're now starting to refuse customers that spend noticeable time (~60 days) in the US, even if they're not working there, and are not citizens. Having just moved to the US, two of my German banks pretty want to fire me as a customer.

On top of that, while visa holders (H1, H4 for sure) need to report their accounts at home, the bank in their home country may refuse them as clients. Been there, seen that, not pleasant.

The author herself doesn't seem to be experiencing outrageous banking pain, though. She's paying no US taxes, and could almost certainly fill out her own tax forms if the thousand-Euro fee is onerous. It's completely unclear what, exactly, is so burdensome about her citizenship.

I would say her experience and stress of that experience are shown in her "Violation of Privacy" section. The final part "If they do not match, the US threatens excessively large fines, entirely out of proportion to the totals reported in those accounts, enough to wipe out one’s entire savings. Many banks, meanwhile, are beginning to refuse to do business with US citizens in order to lower their compliance costs." seems pretty painful. I would worry a lot if an error could subject me to a lot of problems.

In general the IRS does not come after you if you make what they think is an honest mistake. I have had several friends get a letter with a correct tax return and simply had to make up the difference.

It's not the IRS to worry about, but a department within the treasury called the "Financial Crimes Enforcement Network." So the concern is very much still valid.

It's pro vs cons.

The cons might be small, but the pros might be even smaller.