My small local bank is actually a small local credit union. I feel this gives me the best of both worlds:
With the network of shared CU branches and ATMs, I actually have more available free ATMs and brick-and-mortar offices available to me than the patrons of any single bank.
They’re still small and local. I feel I get much warmer, friendlier service from my credit union than I did from Wells Fargo, or than I do from Bank of America (with whom I have an account, but is not my main bank).
Oh my gosh, let me count the reasons why a smaller bank is better…
Fee #1
Fee #2
Fee #3
etc.
For me, the big bank experience was fraught with too many errors, too many fees, and too little concern for changing either.
Like Broomstick above, ‘large bank’ got my name wrong about 2 years into our relationship. I noticed it when I got my second box of checks and new ATM card. I took checks, ATM card, birth certificate and marriage certificate down to one of the branches to get the error corrected. THEIR error, not mine. Despite showing my docs, my driver’s license that was in my handbag, and their pulling up of my original account opening paperwork, they said they still could’t make the change without a notarized document stating I was who I purported to be. No, I couldn’t use THEIR notary, as they would be considered an interested party. Long story short, I found a notary, filled out the paperwork and also paid a dang fee to correct THEIR error. The correction stuck for about another year, then darned if my new ATM card didn’t come again with the wrong name. About the same time, they started manipulating the date of my direct deposit, putting it through on any date from Wednesday through the following Monday that struck their fancy. The purpose of direct deposit is for the process to be instantaneous and immediately available to the account holder. They played fast and loose with the dates, doing their best to process any outstanding debits before posting the direct deposit, thus trying to earn some bounce fees. I’m good with my banking and don’t put myself in a vulnerable situation by letting my balance run too low, but the fact that they were doing this was unacceptable to me. I moved my money to a local credit union and haven’t had one hiccup since. Direct deposit is always right on time and they get my name correct first time every time. Savings earning rates are ridiculously low everywhere, but they are slightly better at the credit union and the barriers to receiving the so-called preferrable rates are much lower than at ‘large bank’.
When I have questions, I can call or go in and get answers from someone who knows what they are talking about. And a few years back, when a large company folded unexpectedly and left many people without jobs, the credit union was willing to hold onto a payment or two for a few days before posting them to help people waiting for unemployment to be approved or final checks to be issued. That endeared them to me, even though it didn’t affect me personally.
‘Large bank’ talks a lot about partnership and relationship, but it’s the smaller banks and credit unions that actually build them.
At the last big bank I had an account with, I had an instance where I was hit with overdraft fees despite my statements never showing a negative balance. They claimed that all withdrawals for a day cleared before any deposits. However, they were unable to produce any statement that listed my transactions going through in an order that would result in fees. They were also unwilling to refund any of the fees. I’m with a credit union now*.
I’m in a much better financial situation and barring a major upheaval, won’t ever worry about another overdraft fee. On one hand, I can take some satisfaction from the fact that the money I have in my accounts is benefiting my credit union and not a bank that would screw me over and insist they’re doing it for my convenience. On the other, because I’m not a source of fees anymore the large banks probably don’t want me anyway and are happy that I’m not one of their customers.
*When I was closing the account at the large bank, the teller was talking to me about why I was doing so. I was getting married at the time and I told the teller that setting up a joint account with my wife was one of the things that was motivating me to finally leave the bank. She told me that it was very important that I keep a separate, preferably secret, account from my wife. It wasn’t a matter of if my wife was going to do something horrible and I’d need cash she couldn’t touch, it was a matter of when. That’s a level of customer service I don’t get at my credit union, but I’m willing to overlook it.
My primary accounts (checking and savings) are with a local bank. Local bank used to give away Otis Spunkmeyer cookies and popcorn but I guess that got too expensive. My mortgage is with Chase and that was a complete cluster**** and I would never use Chase for anything. I have a secondary checking account with BoA and have had no problems with them.
I use a CU that used to be in the building where I worked. That branch closed & there’s none within 1½-2 hr drive of me, but I don’t care. The local convenience store chain(s) have free ATMs, I can deposit checks with my phone. I bank online & call them on the few occasions that I need something & you know what, I get someone on the phone who can actually help me. When I got a car loan, they overnighted me the paperwork with the check, I signed it & mailed it back. Also, the fees I pay are miniscule.
The biggest banks are innovators & bring new things to market first (like depositing checks via your phone), but many of the smallest banks are not far behind them at all since they’re using running their own software but using one of the big vendors, like Fiserv; akin to the fact that you don’t need to program your own computer, you buy Windows 7, 8.1, 10, etc to run on the PC in your house.
I was happily banking with Wachovia for years and then Wells Fargo bought 'em out. The fees started going up and the customer service went all pear-shaped. Wachovia used to have some of the best customer service I’d encountered. When it became Wells Fargo, they pissed me off over something really stupid, I’m sure, so I pulled all my accounts (except for my IRA) and moved them over to a local credit union. Better interests rates, both for borrowing and saving, lots of loan specials (like home refi with no closing costs), and fewer and lower fees.
I’ll never go back.
ETA: I just bought a car and got the best interest rates straight from the dealer’s financing offer. Upon completing the paperwork, I was thrilled to learn that the underwriting financer was my very own credit union. They called me after I closed on the car to set up the payments, and set them to automatically come from one of my accounts. I never have to worry about making the car payment. The phone call was more like, “Oh hi, how are the kids? Still in hockey? Great! Thanks for calling, can you take the payments out of my savings? Sure, that date will work, thanks! Tell your mom I said hi!”
I started banking with a credit union which then switched to a “mutual bank” - it runs like the old credit union, but I guess it gives them some options to offer different kinds of services.
There are a few reasons I like them:
[ul]
[li]No fees for checking or saving[/li][li]If you bounce a check, their overdraft policy is to treat it as a line of credit. They send notices that day, so sometimes when it happened I was able to move funds around and they charged me a day’s interest: $0.50, which barely covers their postage[/li][li]Their loan services are very personal. Our mortgages are there, but I’m currently using VW credit’s 0% rate[/li][li]I just received a $17,000 check, written by my brother as an executor for my mother’s estate. The teller asked me if I had any concerns about the check, which I didn’t. I asked her when the funds would be available, and she said “right now!”[/li][/ul]
I kept trying to. Every time I switched, one bank after another was snatched up by a large regional bank. I’ve had the “same” bank for 30 years now, and it was bought so many times it’s now an Arvest (Walmart) bank.
This has not been my experience with Wells Fargo, Chase, or Citibank, all of which had wretched customer service.
I have stayed with the same credit union for 15 years, and when I refinanced my house this spring, made sure that they were going to continue to service my loan. My brother’s mortgage was transferred from Citibank (bad) to Green Tree (remarkably worse).
I was just reminded of one thing where a larger bank might be better: safety deposit boxes. Credit unions generally don’t have them (they might not be allowed to). Some local banks do, our was opened at a local bank that was bought out twice and is now one of the NC banks that expanded outward.
I banked with a regional bank until it was bought out by Chase. I couldn’t complete the simple process of calling to acknowledge receipt of my Chase bank card due to Chase’s inability to recognize the account number as typed in the phone. I couldn’t navigate through the Chase phone system to get to a real person and straighten the problem out because it kept requesting various security passwords that I didn’t have or the phone system didn’t recognize. I went in and withdrew my money from the local Chase bank, and opened an account with another local bank, and haven’t had any such problems since.
On the other hand, a small local bank doesn’t do you much good if you move. I used to have an account at a regional bank that only existed in Montana and Wyoming. I didn’t have any problem with it, until I moved back to the Cleveland area, and obviously needed a bank with a local presence. It turns out that banks still haven’t come up with a solution to the problem of transferring money to another bank, and as a result, I was without access to any of my savings for a month and a half, at a time when I was living off of my savings.
That’s fairly bizarre. Didn’t your ATM card work at the new location? Couldn’t you just write yourself a check drawn on the old bank and deposit it in the new? That would seemingly solve that problem.