Carolina Trust Federal Credit Union

Reviews

• KS

  Keith Stewart-Sweat

  4 days ago
  1.0
  FOR ANYONE READING THIS REVIEW, READ MY WIFE'S REVIEW FIRST AND SEE CAROLINA TRUST'S RESPONSE! My wife and I opened checking and savings accounts on February 20th. On February 22nd, I logged into my external accounts—any company that auto-drafts monthly—to change the payment method to the new accounts. On February 23rd, Kathy called my wife regarding my login activity. There was no verification process to confirm she was actually speaking to my wife. Red flag. My wife told Kathy she wasn’t sure exactly what I had done. Kathy then called me. Again, no verification. I gave a high-level explanation of my activity. She mentioned a VPN being used. I explained that I have a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science with a minor in Cyber Security, and that APIs used by companies like Plaid and Trustly can sometimes appear as VPN traffic. Kathy said she didn’t understand what I was referring to (which is understandable) but would pass it along to their “compliance department.” My login was temporarily locked. On Wednesday, February 25th, Kathy called again. My login had been blocked once more. She stated there had been a login at 5 a.m. that morning from a laptop in Chicago using my credentials and multi-factor authentication. In their response they claimed they “offered multi-factor authentication and additional security options,” which is inaccurate. With my educational background, MFA is something I immediately enable on everything I use. During that call Kathy said, “Mr. Stewart-Sweat, our compliance department has to figure out what YOU are doing.” I again explained in detail what I had done. Kathy responded that she still didn’t understand but would pass it along and get back to me. In their response to my wife they said, “Our intention was never to blame your husband.” That statement is false, because throughout this process that is exactly how the situation was presented. From Wednesday, February 25th to Monday, March 2nd I heard nothing. I wasn’t concerned since we hadn’t even received our debit cards yet and the auto-draft updates were already done. On March 2nd I received a call from Stacey at the Little River branch. She said, “Mr. Stewart-Sweat, I have some bad news. Your login has been permanently banned.” I asked if that meant the specific login. She said no—it meant I was permanently banned from using the app or website at all. When I got home, my wife was waiting on a call back from Kathy. My wife began the conversation respectfully, but Kathy repeatedly interrupted her when she tried to speak. Again, the claim that they were not blaming me is inaccurate. That is exactly what happened throughout the process. To end the conversation, my wife said we were on our way to close the accounts. Kathy replied that it was our right to do so. We drove over and closed the account. While my wife waited in line, I stepped outside and called Anderson Brothers Bank. No appointment needed. I also left Kathy a message requesting the information their “compliance department” supposedly had. I never received a return call. Once home, I repeated the same process linking external accounts with the new bank. Guess what? No phone calls the next day. ABB also told us that if login credentials were ever compromised, they would simply wipe the login and create a new one. Exactly. Finally, regarding the “compliance department.” In our line of work (my wife also has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and works as a Network Engineer), we’ve worked with schools, state agencies, and Fortune 500 companies. When organizations refer to “our compliance department,” it often means a third-party outsourced service that they do not want customers interacting with directly. That is speculation, but the lack of transparency raises additional concerns. The lack of identity verification, blaming the customer, permanently banning access to online banking instead of resolving the issue, and the overall communication throughout this process, are what we dealt with in 10 days of banking with them. I cant imagine what other problems they have.
• SS

  Stacey Stewart-Sweat

  Mar 2, 2026
  1.0
  My response to this banks excuse below. Kathy, you most certainly did not JUST set up multi-authenticator on my husbands account. You also told him it was his fault this was happening. You told me when I called you that you didn't like his answers to your questions so you PERMANATLY banned him! Get your facts straight. You who have never met my husband told me when I told you he wouldn't do something like that and asked you who would? You stated "You would be surprised what some people do." Sorry Kathy, but that is blame honey. The issue seems to be that this institution cannot protect it's customers accounts, and when that happens you blame and punish the customer. You are not going to be in business long if that is you business solution. DO BETTER!! My husband and I opened up a checking and savings account with this bank at their Little River location. My husband set up auto bill pay and he got a phone call about someone trying to VPN into our account. Kathy the branch manager took 3 days to investigate and then called him today to tell him that he was the one responsible for the attempted fraud on our account so the banks response was to ban my husband from online banking PERMENATLY. I swear guys their solution was to blame their customer and punish him rather than to block the IP address of the person doing the fraud. When I asked Kathy why anyone would give their bank account information out to be hacked her response was "You would be surprised what people would do." This is unbelievable. I cannot believe that their solution is to blame the customer not the one committing the fraud! Stay AWAY from this bank. They do NOT have your best interest in mind. Any bank that blames and punishes the customer for the fact that they obviously do not have good online security, is not good business. I called the direct bank manager Mr. Loadhold who not only backed up his branch manager's incompetence stated that he believes that they have a great fraud team. If they did have a great fraud team they certainly do not have a great solution to block would be hackers. The President and vice president need to do some retraining about customer service with their staff. THE SOLUTION SHOULD NEVER BE TO BLAME THE CUSTOMER AND PERMANATLY BLOCK THEM. How do you stay in business? I had an account there for 1 week and someone was attempting to hack that banks accounts that quickly. I feel sure this bank will not be around long, if this is how they treat their customers and good riddance. Thankfully I was able to open an account with ABB, they have better customer service and actually allow you to set up blameless bill pay. I have seen their responses on others bad reviews about them. Let me teel you, don't bother, you had a chance to make it right before I closed my accounts with you today and you did not, so your comment would be for others reading this review and not to solve the problem. If customer service was important to you, then you would have done something about the way your branch manager and direct manager treated customers. Reading the reviews I see I am not the only one who had a problem with that branch manager. Do better Carolina Trust Federal Credit Union before you let these staff members kill your business.
• RD

  Richard DiNonno

  Sep 16, 2025
  5.0
  I’ve been coming to Carolina Trust FCU since 2008 and have been using them since. I have never had one bad experience here . The employees here always deliver service that’s nothing less than staggering. Shannon and Tracey are just a couple of the bank tellers that always greet me with a smile and provide top notch service. As far as financial institutions are concerned , the employees at Carolina Trust are the best in the industry.
• FM

  Fiji madison

  Aug 8, 2025
  1.0
  The younger teller always has an attitude always thinks she is high and mighty and better than everyone else terrible for business and has terrible customer service in my professional opinion she should be fired immediately if I had someone like her working for my business talking to customers the way she does she wouldn’t be working very long (description: brown hair, brown eyes, age: 27-40, white) I didn’t want to even write a review but after multiple times I feel like it’s necessary
• PE

  Paula Elliott

  Jul 27, 2016
  1.0
  This bank is the worst bank I ever used, tellers give wrong info,bank manager is extremely rude. Please avoid this bank.

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