New bank help.

[Caiyuo]

Nope, they write of any ATM fees up to $15 a month, and their website and phone service is top notch.

Not at all. Their website is extremely robust and pretty much does everything you can do at a bank, transactions are processed quickly, you can deposit checks online with a scanner, they reimburse ATM fees, and their phone support is fantastic.

Only thing you miss out on is getting large sums of cash and currency exchange, but even as a member those cost you money in person (I used to live in San Antonio where their only "branch" is), so no distinction.

Oh, their website also offers two-factor authentication via text messaging or email too, so it's incredibly secure.


Edit: Also, because I'm a bit OCD and a few people missed it, APR = interest you owe. APY = interest you gain. Talking about where to put your money means you want APY, not APR.

Sorry, carry on now >_>

bam, thank you both, I think I'm decided. Have wanted to do this for awhile!

[*Shinzon*]

So I'm gonna jump in this thread and ask too: I'm moving to Buffalo NY from NYC to go to law school. I have an Amalgamated checking account (my only account) but in Buffalo there are no branches at all. Closest banks are HSBC, 10mins from the school and Bank of America, 20 minutes. Wondering what people thought of either of those two, in relation to each other and if one was better than the other making the 20min trip to the bank worthwhile? There's also a bank known as M&T bank, that was huge but I'd never heard of it or even seen any of it's branches in NYC so I'd probably be leaning towards HSBC or BOA. Anyway thanks in advance.

[Kohan]

Don't fucking go with Bank of America. The only people who praise them are the ones who haven't had any trouble with them. However, the only reason they haven't is because they've been fortunate, not because bad customer service is rare.

They do not provide customer support. Period. What they give you is what their script says. I know this from personal experience, as I was an account holder for years, but due to a change in the way they were managing my money, I had an awful set of overdrafts. When I went into the bank, they told me I'd have to call the support line. I did. They were no use. I returned to the bank, and asked to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor gave me exactly the same lines. They said that, if I was unhappy with the situation, I could call the support line. They couldn't do anything, no matter what.

By now, you should see how hopeless it was.

No one there will help you. Try going to other branches, talking about how long you've been an account holder -- none of it will help you. Don't fucking get a Bank of America account. The moment something goes wrong, you'll be dropped like a hot potato, and no one there will give a shit.

EDIT: Shortly after my experience (and me closing my account, once again to the sound of "I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do"), Bank of America changed the way their overdraft policies work -- to an extent. A while after that, news broke about how they're exceptionally conniving bastards, even by banker's standards. Don't give them your business unless you're a fucking fool.

[foopy]

Edit: Also, because I'm a bit OCD and a few people missed it, APR = interest you owe. APY = interest you gain. Talking about where to put your money means you want APY, not APR.

Sorry, carry on now >_>

wut?

APR = annual percentage rate

APY = annual percentage yield

these two rates differ due to compounding. interested owed or interest gained is irrelevant.

both rates are always shown whenever a bank mentions interest rates.

if you want more info just wiki it. but what you said wrong.

[Synbios]

I've heard other people have horror stories about BofA but I have had 0 problems with them in the 19 year's I've had an account with them. Hell I'm someone who actually champions for them because the service i've got has been outstanding. For instance, I had my PSN account hacked (before this whole thing went down) and someone had bought 3, $150 credits. BofA called me at like 5am because of the suspecious activity and that who ever was attempting to charge more. They ended up immediately canceling the transactions and refunded the money with no hassle, they even apologizes profusely for waking me up early on a Sunday.

Chase on the other hand has really dicked me around. I had a cc with them and at the time with another company. Chase bought them out. When I went to make my payment for the month I called both chase and the other company and asked them who do I send payment to. They both said to pay them like normal(chase to chase, other company to other company). Turns out I was supposed to send both payments to chase. I get my check returned, call them and they say send it to chase. I do that and it ends up being late because of the return at which point chase jacks up my apr to 29.9% on both cards. Mind you i've never made a single late payment my entire life before or after. Called Chase because I figure they would straighten it out given the circumstances, nope. Fuck Chase.

[Kerberoz]

EDIT: Shortly after my experience (and me closing my account, once again to the sound of "I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do"), Bank of America changed the way their overdraft policies work -- to an extent. A while after that, news broke about how they're exceptionally conniving bastards, even by banker's standards. Don't give them your business unless you're a fucking fool.

and they only changed because of the new law that requires overdraft "protection" to be opt-in.

[Synbios]

Don't fucking go with Bank of America. The only people who praise them are the ones who haven't had any trouble with them. However, the only reason they haven't is because they've been fortunate, not because bad customer service is rare.

They do not provide customer support. Period. What they give you is what their script says. I know this from personal experience, as I was an account holder for years, but due to a change in the way they were managing my money, I had an awful set of overdrafts. When I went into the bank, they told me I'd have to call the support line. I did. They were no use. I returned to the bank, and asked to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor gave me exactly the same lines. They said that, if I was unhappy with the situation, I could call the support line. They couldn't do anything, no matter what.

See this is the thing that gets me. You complain about their overdraft fees but maybe you should do a better job managing your money and not spend more then you have? I seriously blows my mind how an adult can have such a lack of understanding of their own financial situation and go needlessly spend money. I personally was a fan of the $30 overdraft fee because it punished people for being retarded.

[Melena]

I'm going to jump in with a BofA horror story that even 10 years after the fact, still sets me into a fit of rage. I had two payments go through, one large, and another only a couple of dollars. I had about 100 in savings, with overdraft protection. The first one went through and was about 75 cents over what I had in the account, then the second one went through for about 2 bucks. Instead of taking from my savings, they hit me with 2x overdraft fee's. So I call the bank and explain the situation. The person on the phone tells me that there was a mistake and she'd correct one of the overdraft fee's. I told her both needed to be corrected as I had overdraft protection and plenty of money in the savings. She then had the balls to tell me that I should be thankful she's fixing one of them and if I give her any more attitude she won't reverse any of them. Got a manager on the phone, ripped the manager a new one, got the fee's reversed, then immediately drove to the branch and closed my account and went to wells fargo. And while they've done some things that have annoyed me, nothing to the level of BofA or Citi (credit card story for another time).

[Melena]

See this is the thing that gets me. You complain about their overdraft fees but maybe you should do a better job managing your money and not spend more then you have? I seriously blows my mind how an adult can have such a lack of understanding of their own financial situation and go needlessly spend money. I personally was a fan of the $30 overdraft fee because it punished people for being retarded.

Because it's not possible money wasn't being put into the right accounts, and thus causing overdraft fees? If you have bills set to go through on specific days and the bank fucks up and not put the money into the proper accounts, it's your fault right? Must be a BofA rep.

[Synbios]

Because it's not possible money wasn't being put into the right accounts, and thus causing overdraft fees? If you have bills set to go through on specific days and the bank fucks up and not put the money into the proper accounts, it's your fault right? Must be a BofA rep.

Well if you deposit money through the ATM machine you should get a receipt of where the money went. If you go inside a bank, the teller should give you a receipt of where the money went. If you have direct deposit you have to fill out a routing number which puts money into checking I believe (not sure if you can have direct deposit to a savings account), so you know where that went. Or better yet, after a day or two from depositing your money maybe check online that it was in your proper account. I've had a bank account for like 20 years now and I've never once had money be deposited into the wrong account by the 4 different banks I've banked with. Sounds like someone isn't being responsible and managing their own money.

Edit: and lol at being a BofA rep. I can't imagine they make anywhere near a worthwhile salary for me to considering doing that job.

[Melena]

Wow you are fucking retarded. You have money deposited into the account and on specific days you have it set to automatically move money to accounts x,y & z to cover your various bills/mortgage. If for some reason they don't move it or move the wrong amounts (cause hey, bofa is fucking retarded as has been pointed out on many occasions) and boom, you now all of a sudden got hit by overdrafts. But hey, since you've never had a bank fuck up your money, it must have never happened to anyone else. By that logic, Comcast must be the best internet/tv provider as I have only had two very minor problems in 8+ years of service.

[Ksandra]

See this is the thing that gets me. You complain about their overdraft fees but maybe you should do a better job managing your money and not spend more then you have? I seriously blows my mind how an adult can have such a lack of understanding of their own financial situation and go needlessly spend money. I personally was a fan of the $30 overdraft fee because it punished people for being retarded.

again, I worked for them. THEY ARE SHADY. As kohan said, you've had zero issues because you got lucky, not because they are good.


To get you a deeper understanding, every bank has goals they set per month. To put these goals in perspectives, BoA tellers had to get 5 referrals a day (a referral is either a sale on a new product, or at least passing them over to a banker in hopes the banker can get the person a new product. Wells fargo's teller goal? 20 per month.



They put so much pressure on you so many people end up pulling shady ass shit. They created a program that every time you run a transaction you have a chance to have a preapproval on a CC pop up on the screen you had to sell to the customer. Your acceptance rate had to be over 80% per day on the offers given. Even when I went to the teller training class, the teacher was like "even if they say no, hit accept and move on"...but that shit runs your credit and open a card without people's permission.

About a month after I started they changed it where now people had to sign it. Even then though, I saw other tellers getting people to sign saying it was so the pop up doesn't show anymore and would lie about it running the credit because they were so desperate to reach their goals. And I think it took them like a year to change it because they were starting to get sued.


Those tellers when caught btw, got a little slap on the wrist, a laugh, and a praise but don't do it again attitude. However, if you only got 4 referrals that day, you had to sit in the back with the supervisor to be told if you did it again you'd be fired because you just didn't try hard enough.

hey do not provide customer support. Period. What they give you is what their script says. I know this from personal experience, as I was an account holder for years, but due to a change in the way they were managing my money, I had an awful set of overdrafts. When I went into the bank, they told me I'd have to call the support line. I did. They were no use. I returned to the bank, and asked to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor gave me exactly the same lines. They said that, if I was unhappy with the situation, I could call the support line. They couldn't do anything, no matter what.

The reason they don't do customer service (or try not to), is because the banker's goals are so insanely high and customer service isn't a part of their goals. They don't want their bankers wasting time fixing shit when they could be opening up HELOCS. They know how to fix stuff, and have access, but are trained to do everything they can to get people with issues out of the bank and get either online or on the phone. Really though it is not the workers fault but BoA's insane expectations that turn the best into sleazy car salesmen. I had 3 different managers, at two difference centers. Each one at the end of the month started calling family and friends to open up extra checking accounts that we would waive for free (and close out 3 months later), just to try and reach our checking goal. And one of those banks was top in the area for BoA branches (not an exaggeration, I have a shitty ass award we didn't deserve sitting in my trunk for us being "the best"). It made me sick.

[Rhinox]

Really wish this thread was made Friday night. Fml

[Rhinox]

So if I'm reading this thread correctly usaa is also available to people outside the military? At work so can't read the links

[*Shinzon*]

HSBC it is then. Don't need any problems and all I need is a simple checking account for debit card/credit charges. Thanks.

[archibaldcrane]

With the check depositor via phone, USAA seems like a great setup.

[shemei]

I am another person that recommends USAA. I have had my insurance and credit card with them for so long I am embarrassed to post the dates. Credit card is amazing, and the insurance is the cheapest I have ever seen for both our house and cars. Both my kids are using USAA to bank while they are away at college and it is very easy to deal with, especially for the walking atm's my husband and I when we need to deposit money for them. The kids are also on the USAA insurance although neither my husband or I was ever in the military. My dad retired from the airforce in 1973 and always insured the family with USAA and I got in that way. Once you ever have insurance with them you can always insure with them even if you change to another carrier for a while.

[Kohan]

See this is the thing that gets me. You complain about their overdraft fees but maybe you should do a better job managing your money and not spend more then you have? I seriously blows my mind how an adult can have such a lack of understanding of their own financial situation and go needlessly spend money. I personally was a fan of the $30 overdraft fee because it punished people for being retarded.

Are you one of those people who thinks everyone on food stamps and/or welfare is living a ghetto fabulous life while completely shirking responsibility? I fucking hope so, as that would be adorable.

If you wish to know what happened, here it is, in a nutshell: I went to a bank to cash a paycheck in person (as I have never enjoyed leaving it to someone clearing out an ATM at a later time/date), asking the teller for assurance that it would not be placed on hold, which I received. Casually, I chatted with them about what I planned to do. All was well.

It was not a weekend, and it was not late in the afternoon. I left, and traveled elsewhere to pay my bills. Later that evening, I checked my bank account, and saw what was roughly the following (all processed at the same exact time, right down to the minute):

- Bill Withdrawal
- Bill Withdrawal
- Bill Withdrawal
- Overdraft Fee
- Overdraft Fee
- Overdraft Fee
- Check Deposit

Naturally, I was incensed. When I subsequently asked for the fees to be reversed, it did not matter that I had a teller's reassurance, nor a receipt, nor anything of the sort. None of it meant anything.

Would you say that speaking with an employee of the company, explaining your situation, trusting them to understand your needs and respond accordingly, and subsequently expecting the company to compensate for a customer being misled by one of their own a case of being "retarded"?

If so, please do not hesitate to kill yourself.

[Restrat]

I'm pretty sure BoA had (or has? I think it was banned in the new laws) a system where each day it would calculate what order to place your transactions in in order to make them the most money in fees, despite when they actually occurred