City National Bank of Florida

Terrible Customer Service.....
We are a small church that has banked here for years. Despite that, whenever you call, the person is out to lunch or will get back to you later, which may or may not happen. Like every church, we have elections and change officers. They create so many hurdles for us to jump through that it is ridiculous. Each time we make a change to our business listing with the state, we have to pay almost 70 dollars, but the bank has its own rules that require this. They are inflexible and do not understand what customer service means. We will be leaving and going to a proper bank in the immediate future.

This bank misled me out of a substantial sum of money while claiming that I was in the highest tier group available under the purview of their private banking unit. They stated that I was in the bank's highest tier group 4 and entitled to the highest interest rates available if I maintained a minimum amount of funds ($250,000) in their gold money market account. Instead, they paid me the lowest rate available, and as a result, I lost a significant amount of money. Their excuse is that I didn't inquire, even though I was assured that I was being looked after by their prestigious Private Banking Unit. Deceitful practices should not be allowed to take advantage of banking clients.

Holy moly, I got locked out of my account and could not access it for a week. I had to make a complaint to the CFPB -- still waiting on a resolution.

If I could give zero, I would. I was misled by a financial advisor in FL back in 2019 when I purchased a house in Orlando to go with this local bank for the mortgage. I am Canadian and have a bank account with Chase, as I used to work in NYC for some time. It wasn't until I signed the documents that CNB told me I needed to open two bank accounts with them to secure the mortgage. They cannot deduct monthly payments from my Chase account, which is what every other bank has been doing for decades. They required me to open a security account with approximately $12K in deposit, which I cannot touch throughout my mortgage period, and they required me to open a checking account to deduct the monthly mortgage. None of this was communicated upfront with me, and by that time, I was backed into a corner and could not back out of the deal with CNB. Because I did not meet the minimum deposit threshold in my checking, this bank has been deducting $75/month as a bank charge for years. Think about what $75/month can do to people who are struggling, especially during this period of high inflation and low employment. They threatened to charge another $75/month from the reserve account I have as well since I "did not have enough banking activities" and eventually gave up after spending numerous hours going back and forth with them. What a ripoff!

Then what makes it even worse is that they sold their mortgage business to another company, and the two companies did not communicate whatsoever. I am still required to transfer the monthly mortgage to CNB, but it is the other company who receives the money. One month I forgot to transfer the mortgage from Chase to CNB and, when I realized it, it was already a couple of days late. I immediately transferred the money and continued to transfer the mortgage on time for the following months. But little did I know that the other company stopped deducting the mortgage because of this incident (being a couple of days late) and started to charge me penalties, unwarranted fees, sending me numerous mails to my wrong address in Canada even though the funds were always there in my CNB account. They did not even bother to talk to CNB. When I found out what happened, I spent so much time communicating with both CNB and the other company, asking them to reverse the penalties and unwarranted fees with no luck. CNB told me it was not their responsibility and that I needed to talk to the mortgage company, while the mortgage company (specifically the research department I was dealing with) was tone-deaf, rude, disrespectful, and utterly unprofessional. I am already wasting $75/month for almost 5 years with this bank because I was misled to sign onto the mortgage with them, and now I have been ripped off again for something completely not my fault. Why don't you talk to each other and make sure customers are well cared for, rather than keep charging your customers as if their money grows on trees?

I am not going to renew in any event after May 2024. What a scammer bank and what an unprofessional arrangement to sell your mortgage business but not have the proper protocol to ensure customers can be taken care of by the mortgage company.

To the mortgage company - I do not even know what your name is, but ask your research department to research less and spend more time opening their eyes and looking around at how average people are living. What a useless and cruel team of people who do not even know what they are doing!

City National Bank is just like any other bank, if you neglect customer care and any sort of transparency with relation to fees. Their customer service is absolutely abysmal and their fees nickel and dime you every chance they can possibly get. It’s no wonder the customer service reps are always disgruntled and unhelpful, they probably get people screaming at them every day. Checking Accounts are “free” so long as you adhere to a rule list with regards to how many check card swipes you need, how much has to remain in your balance and how many direct deposits per month. Overall the requirements are extreme and they try to charge you for everything that you do. I was only with City National for a short while, as I was noticing all these little fees appearing on my statement and inevitably I cancelled my account.