Criminal fraud or gross incompetence?
When our CD came due, this bank delayed over a month in returning our money, accruing another month of interest that it kept for itself and never refunded. Is this part of their business model?
Every other bank we've dealt with will release a matured CD directly back into your bank account through an electronic transfer, but not this one.
CFG claimed they sent a check, but it never arrived, and they couldn't track it. Who sends a large check with no insurance or tracking number? We asked them to cancel the alleged check and send a replacement--is that so hard? They are a bank, after all. But they delayed and delayed, for over a month.
Before they would release our money, they insisted that we go to a notary and pay to have their forms notarized, but the forms they sent, including affidavits of fraud, did not even apply to our situation. Eventually they agreed on different forms, but their forms released CFG from all responsibility for the missing money--and put the risk of any loss on us--even though they had supposedly sent a check that never arrived.
As others have commented, the reps in CFG's "customer service" department are hopeless. For example, we called and asked them to provide a number for a bank officer who could contact us. Instead, they transferred our call to a number "no longer in service." We requested to speak to a supervisor but she never called. It took six weeks of wrangling and countless phone calls to get our money back.
If you think you'd enjoy spending literally hours on the phone in fruitless calls with inept bank clerks, CFG could be the bank for you. Otherwise, it's simply not worth the aggravation for the small difference in interest rates you might get. Save yourself time, energy and the need to contact government bank regulators in order to get your money back.
Online reviews show that other customers have had the same problems with CFG. Regulators should step in to ensure that this doesn't recur.
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