I hate my bank
 

I know this is--at the core--my fault, but I can't help but think that a bank could handle things differently...

My wife and I have a "house account" that we both put money into for joint expenses. It usually doesn't have a huge balance since we put money in every month as needed.

At the end of this month we owed property taxes and a contractor bill. My wife had given me a physical check from her brokerage account. The check was deposited, cleared in one day per the new laws, and I wrote the two large checks knowing that the money was there.

Seems the brokerage changed checks or account numbers or something, and returned the check. Crap. No big deal though, since either one of us can get money into the account IF WE KNEW THERE WAS A FRIGGIN PROBLEM!

But the bank didn't call. They didn't e-mail. I only found out by going on-line to pay some bills. What did the bank do?

1) Charged me a fee for the returned brokerage check.

2) Transferred the $2000 overdraft line of credit to the account even though any moron could see that it wouldn't cover either large outstanding check. Charged me a fee and will charge interest.

3) Bounced the property tax check. Charged me a fee. Now I have to either hope that the school district gets the returned check to redeposit it by the end of the month or I get charged a $1000 late penalty. Or I can write them another check and hope they have it together enough not to deposit both of them.

4) Bounced the check to the contractor. Charged me a fee. I called the contractor. He's pissed because he's paying payroll today and was counting on the money being there. He has a tradesman's credit line, so he's OK, but of course I offered to pay any fees incurred.

I gotta get a bank that employs people that know how to use the phone... :mad:

Go to the manager and tell them the above. Offer them the chance to refund the charges and if they do not then take your accounts elsewhere. I did the same thing and the manager bent over backwards to help. I transfered another account to their bank because if their service. Its Compass bank BTW.

JoeA

Always make friends with your branch manager. Once friends, drop off a bottle of wine or some sort of gift every December. Then another evey July.

My branch manager has actually let me carry a negative balance on my payroll account until I could get there to fix whatever problem caused it. In that case it turned out their teller did not transfer my payroll correctly. Their error, the impotant thing is that they carried me before they even knew who was at fault.

I can call her anytime to do whatever and she will do it without hesitation. Having a friend in the bank is priceless.

Actually we did have a person like that. She was fired and that role was eliminated when our bank was acquired by large, growth oriented national bank a couple of years ago.

I'm so glad I bank at a credit union. It has one branch--the President's office is six steps from the teller area. The bottom line? There is always someone there that can take care of whatever problem.

I am with a small local bank and also know the president of the bank, I have done hime some favors and he has done the same. Enough cannot be said for a small local bank over a huge national chain. While the Bank of Americas give you freedom to go to a branch anywhere in the country, you cannot beat a phone call to your branch manager that will accomplish 10x as much.

And you wondered why bank profits are up?
http://www.forbes.com/newswire/2004/01/20/rtr1218791.html

For example, CitiGroup's profits were up 96%.

The other nice thing is that I am an owner of my credit union (every account holder is). It is kind of a mutual company. They make record profits? It comes back to me as a dividend...then they lower their fees the next quarter to try to correct the problem.

We also bank at a credit union. They have been the best. We have both banked with a national bank at one time and was sadly dissappointed. We know everyone at the credit union and they are pleased to correct these type of problems. We had several hundred dollars in fees reversed quickly when a monthly direct deposit didn't go through and direct pays were taken.

Hiedi

Wow now that is the kinda place I want to bank at. I have to bribe them to keep them from screwing me over.:rolleyes:

The consolidation in this industry is a PITA. I had a Quick and Reilly account, and they were acquired by BOA, and it was first a hassle getting checks, then BOA reorg'd and the checks were no good, but did they tell me? Nah, I bounced two on a transfer to Vanguard.

If your bank is the big W, around here we call them what they should have been named after the First Union merger, which is Fuchovia.

hey Jon, wouldn't happen to be Hells Fargo, would it?

Credit Unions and samaller local banks are usually the best, my local was bought out a year ago, never a problem when it was local, the new owners have been a string of problem after problem.

credit card companies have also been raising my hackels, one of my cards is charging an exorbitant fee on foreign purchases, and no it's not the $ to euro exchange rate which is bad enough.

Go to a Credit Union. You'll be much happier. I know I am.

I had a similar issue years ago. Mega-State-Bank didn't care when I compained. So my wife and I closed all our checking, savings, money-market, and multiple brokerage accounts.

The next day we recieved a call. Gee... They decided they *could* waive those fees after all. I told them they were too late.

Funny this comes up now. I am also with one of the big ones. Since 1980 something. In the last year have been 3 big f-ups. The one running at the moment is a branch manager in California where I stopped to withdraw $1200 cash to buy a bike waited 10 days and put in a second $1200 cash withdrawl. By the time I saw it online, and called, she had 'failed to show up for work this morning'. Yep, several other customers are in the same boat. Here's the bad part. Everyone knows what happened. No one can fix it. My account is in Nevada. My bank operates in Nevada without a state charter. Meaning the Nevada Bank Commisioner has no juridiction. They operate on their federal charter, based in San Fran. Geez. I had to go to the Federal Comptroller of the Currency in Houston to file the complaint. Good news. Because it's over $1000 is a felony. A Federal one. Bad news. Case backlog. 6 to 9 months before a case inspector is even assigned. Good news. They catch the branch manager. Bad news, she's broke.

I am out the $1200 at the moment, no one at the bank gives a damn.

I love my local little bank.

When I needed a commercial loan, I sat down with the actual decision maker, the president of the bank. Not some "Loan Representative". Try that with a big national "Who-the-hell-are-you" type bank.

I walked in with some nicely organized information for him, and walked out with a handshake and an appointment to sign closing docs.

Read Financial Self Defense by Charles Givens. One of his sugestions is to make friends with your branch manager. Did I do this with the motive to not get ripped off? No. I did it so I could call in favors when needed. Its actually been a 2 way street I have helped her and she has I. I cannot even go into all she has done. Allowing a negative balance on my payroll acccount was NOTHING compared to other solids she has done for me.

The bottle of wine and other occasional gifts are done out of gratittude on my part to show appreciation for the kind things she does. When someone actually thanks you for the service you provide you'll tend to go out of your way for that person.

Try it you might be suprised how nice it is to be treated like someone very important every time you walk into your branch.