Changing banks questions

[rfuerst911sc]

Hey guys , our small town lost the bank we have used since moving here . Fortunately about 12 miles away is another branch of the same bank and we use that one.

There are four other banks in our town , we have no credit unions . So Sue and I have loosely discussed switching banks .

We both have SS and company pensions that are deposited electronically . We have auto payments for general stuff/bills .

So how difficult is it to switch banks ? Is it a nightmare or not too bad ? We haven't talked to any new bank folks yet , thought I would see what the Pelican brain trust has to say .

[rwest]

Haven’t had to do it, but anything you have direct deposit or withdrawal would have to be changed- tax refunds etc.

If I decided to do it, I think I would keep the old one active for a long time as long as there weren’t fees.

[craigster59]

I'm kind of in the same boat. Moving from California to Arizona I do my main banking with Chase and have IRA's and accounts with First Entertainment Credit Union.

I dissolved my Calif LLC (they make it impossible to move your biz from Ca to Az) and as you can imagine from the name, there's no First Entertainment branches in Az.

I've moved some money to Desert Financial Credit Union and am thinking of doing all of my banking there. I also do direct depositd with SSA and my pension, also pay bills. I might keep a checking account with Chase for bill pay and use DF as my main bank since they seem more personal and offer better services.

[911 Rod]

I've done it.
Pull everything out and leave a $1.
They'll close it on their own in a couple of years.

[wdfifteen]

I just went through it, and it is a pain in the ass.
The thing is, I changed to a new bank when we moved out of this area 8 years ago. Now that we have moved back, I started doing business with the same bank I had been using previously. They know me, which helps.

But changing all the auto payments and auto deposits has been a real time suck. If our current bank had had a branch 12 miles away, it would have been MUCH easier. With all the options for electronic banking, there is no need to actually visit the bank very often, and a 12-mile drive once a month or so isn't bad.

As stated above, it is a good idea to keep the old account active for 6 months or so. The only downside to this for us was the fact that the bank would honor any payment request for $10 or less, and then charge you for an overdraft if you don't have the funds. So make sure ALL of your recurring payments are canceled or transferred before you keep that minimum in the account.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by 911 Rod

I've done it.
Pull everything out and leave a $1.
They'll close it on their own in a couple of years.

Many years ago I had a dispute with my bank. I just drained the account to 2 bucks, and quit them. They sent paper statements for over a year. Then closed then they just stopped.

My goal is to never go inside my credit union (personal funds) or my bank (business accounts) and I do everything electronically. All my utilities are automatic payment. I do go to my credit union for free notary public services.

All my SS deposits just magically show up in my account every month. I download the feed into Quicken, and I know just what I am spending with debit card and automatic payments in every category, and no crooks stealing my money.

Just open the new account whatever place is easiest to get to.

[rfuerst911sc]

Appreciate the feedback guys , sounds about as fun as a colonoscopy.

[Alan A]

I just switched from citibank to chase. got sick of their crap when i went to pay in checks.

It's not actually that bad so long as you have credit cards and your payments are up to date. Deposit more than 10k and there's a hold on the funds, so have [some] cash.

But - 1. both banks are 5 minutes away. 2. most of my bills go to amex, and the rest i pay by check. 3. i had already [just] paid my mortgage and my ccs when i closed the citi account. 4. work makes it really easy to change where my salary is sent.

YMMV and all that, but I had no issues. Bonus was that chase gave me $300 for opening the account.

[gacook]

Depends how savvy you are with tech, I'd say. I have banked with USAA for about 30 years now; they're almost fully "online" (as in there are almost no physical bank branches anywhere), so I've been doing the "online banking" thing longer than some people.

Point being...online banks generally offer you much better interest rates than most big building banks do. Aside from the potential headache of filling out a couple forms to move whatever direct deposits you may have set up, opening an account is effortless. I just opened a Sofi bank account yesterday in under 3 minutes--it's not hard.

[Cajundaddy]

I did this last year when after 40 years of loyal business BofA started poking me in the eye and making my life difficult. It actually took several months to get all online bill pay, SS deposits, PayPal and other transfers coordinated but now it is done and I am much happier.

Just a guess but I suspect I was part of the BofA debanking scandal.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by craigster59

I'm kind of in the same boat. Moving from California to Arizona I do my main banking with Chase and have IRA's and accounts with First Entertainment Credit Union.

I dissolved my Calif LLC (they make it impossible to move your biz from Ca to Az) and as you can imagine from the name, there's no First Entertainment branches in Az.

I've moved some money to Desert Financial Credit Union and am thinking of doing all of my banking there. I also do direct depositd with SSA and my pension, also pay bills. I might keep a checking account with Chase for bill pay and use DF as my main bank since they seem more personal and offer better services.

Slight hijack. These guys got tired of the CA BS and moved across the state line to AZ, kept the name. They rebuilt my 993 tranny.

https://californiamotorsports.net/

I deal with people flipping banks just about every day. Chase is notorious for drafting SS recipients early to cause NSFs. Half the people don't notice the fees and half the ones who do notice don't fight them. That's a revenue stream for Chase and it's a lot of money. Desert Financial is good, but they tend to have a 1 and/or 0 added to account numbers used for ACH. I have had a lot of trouble with people giving me their account numbers from the bottom of a check and then the payment bouncing because of the CU adding digits for ACH, making the one I got from the check wrong.

If you have overdraft protection, you can just about empty your account and not get an NSF fee if you forget to switch a payment over to the new bank.

[Bill Douglas]

I tend to be "The devil you know." And would do the 12 mile drive for the occasional bank visit.

It must have been a year since I was actually inside a bank.