My husband and I have different financial institutions. Mine is a modestly-sized local credit union. His is bankus giganticus. We carry approximately the same amount of funds in each (a fact which doesn’t seem to matter to this rant).
We need to transfer ownership of these accounts from ourselves as individuals to our family living trust.
Scenario 1, credit union: we go in, immediately speak to a teller, who checks our IDs, and gives us some forms to fill out. We step aside to fill them out, then go back up to another teller, who understands exactly what is needed, we sign the forms, they make copies of the forms for us and a copy of the certificate of trust for themselves, hand us back our papers as appropriate, and we walk out, finished. There is more to do on their side but it is all done by them behind the scenes.
Scenario 2, bank: We go and wait in line because of social distancing. We get inside and wait some more, and go to a teller who informs us that this must be handled by a Personal Banker and by appointment only. We make an appointment three days hence with a PB who doesn’t happen to be there that day. I ask if there are forms we could be filling out in the meantime, and am met with “Oh, no!” The appointment is for a 30-minute window. Today, the day of our appointment, the PB telephones me to say the appointment must be postponed until he has a one-hour slot (tomorrow) because they have to ask lots of questions and put them in the computer while we are waiting so we can check them over. Then it still has to go to the back office for processing and approval.
My surmises, based purely on my prejudicial hatred of huge banks: they don’t have many people working, not enough to make sure details are entered correctly and checked. And/or they want deniability so if there is any error it will devolve onto us. So unlike the credit union, they are taking up our time instead of doing this work behind the scenes, and they don’t want to take responsibility for the accuracy of their work.
Don’t just hint, tell me why, if you know. I’m told that trusts in California are practically a necessity, even for married couples, to avoid a lot of red tape and taxes when one of the spouses dies. Is the bank obligated in some way to make it as difficult as possible?
They asked a lot of intrusive financial questions about things that should have no bearing on these two relatively small bank accounts. I can see why they would need to know something about our current incomes. I flat out refused to tell them how much money I made before I was retired five years ago, so he just put in some number. This tells me that they are gathering this information just because they can, not because they need it.
In my experience, it’s because how the assets in the trust are handled must be in accordance with the terms of the trust, and they have entire trust departments who will review the trust documents before opening the account. This may take days, maybe weeks. It isn’t done in minutes. The bank isn’t obligated to make it as difficult as possible, but they are obligated to ensure that the trust documents are correct and can be properly executed by the bank when it is time for the trust to put in effect.
I think the intrusive questions you were asked had nothing to do with it being a trust account, but perhaps either part of the bank’s ‘Know your customer’ requirements, or generating marketing leads for their investment side of the business. The former is legitimate, the latter is just scummy.
Back in the 90s I worked in the Sullivan designed Guaranty Building in Buffalo. My desk was on the ground floor on the far right side of that picture. The lobby was pretty amazing, as were the offices on the top floor with the round windows.
Oooh, don’t get me started. Several years ago I had to help my elderly mother transfer ownership of her checking account at ** Bank to her trust. The “banker” insisted that the Certificate of Trust I gave her was not adequate, they needed to copy the whole damed thing, roughly 100 pages.* When I objected, I got the standard “It’s our policy” line. And then she started in with all the irrelevant questions: “What is your income and sources?” “Do you rent or own?” I was infuriated, if it had been my own account I would have closed it on the spot. Sadly, my mother was much more docile.
I was sorely tempted, but it’s really my husband’s account (it started out as ours but became his personal account). He thinks I’m making a fuss about nothing.
Al large service companies are understaffed. Not your bank, not most banks; all of the banks, all of the insurance companies, all the cable companies. All of them. They figured out a long time ago that they could save money that way, and that the number of pissed off customers who would actually leave was surprisingly low and would just be made up by pissed off customers leaving their “competitors.”
Couldn’t decide if I should post this here or in one of the threads complaining about the new Discourse based board. The main complaint is about banks, so here it is:
I just enabled two factor authentication for my account on this board. Not really necessary, as about the worst that happens if somebody hacks into my account here is that the mods have to spend some time cleaning up some spam, and after being scolded, my password is reset, and life goes on.
Interesting. We are just going through the process of setting up a trust, and our lawyer specifically mentioned the US Code number that you quote to banks when they try this, so apparently:
It’s common
and
There’s a response other than giving them the whole damn trust doc.
It is this way with all big businesses. You go to complain about something but management has 200 layers of insulating you from anyone who can do anything about your problem or feel bad about it.
Well, if it had been my account my “response” would have been, “Nope, you all are nuts, I’m taking my money elsewhere.” Unfortunately, it was my Mom’s call and she didn’t like to make waves. Grrrr.
