CITReviews of cit.com

First of all, I want to say this is NOT a review of the app or the whole online banking experience in general - it's not good, but it pales in comparison to the truly godawful aspect of the place. What I'm going to attempt to stress is how GROSSLY incompetent (to the point of being inexplicable) the customer service (humans you speak to, if I need to clarify that) reps are (unless you're calling to open an account). I'm not young - I've been contacting businesses for many decades - and the experiences with this place are unprecedented. I'm assuming that has to do with the high interest rate I'm getting and the fact that cutting all other aspects of the business to the bone is necessary, but no. I man, hard no. I'm going to end by stating the obvious .... this ridiculously inept service does not exactly inspire confidence. Understatement.

When I initially opened a savings account in early 2024 and opted in for paperless statements, I received a monthly email notifying me when statements were available. This lasted about three months. Starting in July 2024, the email notices stopped. I contacted them several times requesting the problem be resolved. Each time I received identical canned responses...sorry for the inconvenience, this is how you can download a statement (like I'm an idiot and couldn't figure that out for myself), and we are working hard to fix it. By March 2025, 9 months without an email notice, I'm done. Never got the sense they cared at all. Only reason for the second star is competitive rates, but their customer service negates that benefit. Update 3/11/2025: CIT's reply reinforces my review. Instead of addressing their inability to generate email notices when statements are ready, they offer to help me retrieve statements, which I've already downloaded.

I typed in all the info required only to get told I couldn't open an account at this time. NO reason, NOTHING. I think it's a little shady that it's AFTER you input address, SS#, phone # etc. This was the second time. I'm only sorry I didn't see all these crap reviews on Trustpilot earlier. Not that it will matter but I'm reporting this to BBB and CFBP. HAHA Just tried to file a complaint with BBB. CitBank / First Citizens Bank are not registered with them. Big surprise! No wonder all the crap reviews here.

I don't understand the negative reviews for CIT bank. They do have some quirks that are not ideal (some they have fixed), but they have been great for me for many years. They are the FASTEST at ACH in & out that I have even seen, and I have banked at many, many different banks & credit unions. Literally 1 biz day, tops 2 depending on when you put in the ACH request. And they don't have inane low limits to daily/monthly transfers. They are my primary bank to hold (great Plat Savings rate) & move $. I transfer $ in and out often. If you ACH transfer in (Pull $ in, request originating from Cit), yes, they put a 5 biz day hold on the $ regardless of the amt. You still earn interest on that $ during the hold. Most banks have a hold esp for larger $ amts, I don't consider that unusual. There are many fraud events when someone 'deposits $' and then turns around & immediately withdraws it (if the bank lets them). Then it turns out the $ deposited bounced or was recalled because it was fraudulent. Yeah, that's why there's a 5 day hold to make sure there's no fraud going on. If another bank pushes the $ into Cit bank (other bank initiated the deposit into Cit bank), the $ is available immediately. I don't know about the problems people have wrt opening new accts as a new customer. Since I have been a long-time customer, if I ever want to open an acct, it is easy peasy and takes only a few min. I guess once you are a customer, they don't need to check if you are who you say you are anymore. I guess they take their 'get to know your customer' federal mandate very seriously. They do now have a line in each acct showing pending ACH $ movement (in/out) initiated at Cit bank. This was a complaint I had before. When you put in an ACH xfr request, when it was the day or day before it was to execute, all trace of the pending action disappeared. It confused me, 'cause I wasn't sure anymore if I had scheduled it or not. But it was scheduled, and then a day or 2 later the fully executed transaction would show up. Not good operational transparency on their part, but they fixed that. They did tend to create new-named savings accounts with higher interest rates (so if you had 'older' savings accts, you didn't get the higher rates), but they seem to have stopped that in the last 5yrs or more. They are now sticking to their Plat Savings acct which has a $5K min to get the high rate, and the rate is one of the highest for unlimited max balance. You can't email them from website access anymore (do not like this), but you can email them from the Cit app. Yeah, they are pushing app use. I call them and my wait times have been sporadic. But I just put the phone on speaker and go about doing my other business. Most banks have not-great wait times when calling in by phone, if they even have a tele# to call (Star One Credit Union is the lone exception -- they are fantastic at customer service & I do bank there, but their savings rates are never on the higher end). Anyway, all-in-all, I would highly recommend Cit bank.

Transferred large amount in Bank to Bank, Needed some back for an investment. Bank shows receipt of funds 03/06/25 Found out today they have a 5 business day hard hold on the funds. Although the rates are good. I cant risk not have my funds available for that length of time. I would check what the Banks hold times are. That is an extremely long hold time in this day of age!

I have never had so much trouble opening an account in my life. And that includes the time before the computer age, when everything was done by hand. I recently sold some securities so I checked Bankrate, Nerdwallet, etc for institutions offering competitive interest rates. I selected the Platinum savings account by CIT. Seven days ago I began the process. I provided them with everything they asked for. I then received a message stating that they would need more information and would contact me in 3-5 business days. I began the process on a Wednesday. On Tuesday of the following week I received a message asking me for two more documents relating to proof of ID. First of all, that is an outrage! They must have known that they would require this on the initial application routine. Whatever. I uploaded the requested documents the same day that I received the request. CIT replied that the uploads were successful. But today (seven days since I began the application) I still have not heard back. I also want to echo the other complaints that I see here about the inability to contact them via email. On the initial application I provided them with two phone numbers, a landline and a mobile. But after signing in successfully with userID and password, they want to send a code via telephone. However, like others have commented, the three four-digit choices they provide do not correspond to either of the telephone numbers that I have provided. So for the past week I have >$100K sitting in a checking account, not collecting interest, and no idea when or if I will be approved for the CIT Platinum savings account. Update on 03/06: OK my account has FINALLY been approved. Should have not taken that long.

I had a terrible experience while speaking with CIT customer care over the phone regarding the new account opening process. When I attempted to open an account, I received a message stating that my request could not be completed, but no reason was provided. I contacted customer care for clarification, but they had very limited information and could only offer general explanations for why my application couldn't be processed. They also mentioned that there were no notes indicating the specific issue with my application. When I asked for an email address to contact another support team, they didn’t have one to provide. Overall, a very frustrating experience.

I recently applied for a high yield savings account with CIT. Let me start by saying that I am applying to GIVE them MY money, not the other way around. And, I have perfect credit. They denied my application!!! And for reasons that are so obscure and incomprehensible. When I called to ask for an explanation, they couldn't give me one. I had to call another agency to try and get info, wasted a ton of my time, and still got nowhere. Stay far away from these people -- nothing but a huge waste of time.