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I don’t know if any one else can relate but my credit union has personally paid my credit card bill themselves/ asked for $0 certain months multiple times without ever asking me for money back.
I have 2 credit unions I use. One of them gives me a credit card with the highest flat rate, no fee, cash back % I've seen. The other gave me a mortgage rate nearly 1% lower than I could find elsewhere.
Sometimes it's not about returning profits back to members as a lump sum, but rather about giving members better rates so you don't wind up with a ton of profits in the first place.
People are also shareholders and profit benefits them, so to say profit isn't for the people isn't actually true. It's just that not everyone benefits from that profit, which is the case for any business.
You can be for profit, and still keep the thieving to a minimum. lol I mean I am sure Cap1 "thieves" in their own rights but for the low man on the totem pole, it started with checking account fees. Been with Cap1 for at least 5 years now, and have several accounts because of how I like to structure my budgeting. I keep $2 in my primary checking account because I don't have to worry about overdraft fee's, monthly account costs. I go to my gas station, it holds a dollar, deducts the full amount a day later, and I transfer the funds and don't get penalized with an overdraft fee. For me, it prevents unwanted, or unexpected charges from being issued to my (debit card) account (i.e. subscription I forgot about). They tell me if declined, then I can go back into what ever that subscription is and cancel it. To each their own.. My severely untreated ADHD brain set this up years ago and it works for me. Now that I am treated it still makes sense to me to continue this way.
That is not the only thing they've done, the *risk* is doing business with a company where that sort of thing is accepted or even possible. You might be fine, who knows.
Wells Fargo. They gave me the run around on refinancing my house. I already had the loan with them, had about 50% equity, had a perfect payment record for several years and maintained about a $30K savings balance forever. I wanted to refi to save a few points. I had been unemployed for a while following the 08 crash, but still made all my payments, had been back to work for a few months and was making about 30% more than when I initially qualified for the loan. My wife had been fully employed the entire time. They said I needed 90 more days of employment before they would discuss the refi. I went to a credit union and they started the process immediately. I pulled all my money from Wells Fargo.
Yeah I've been heavily considering a switch to a credit union! I used one for a HELOC because the rate / access to my home equity was unbeatable. Have you had any struggles with your credit union?
Their app sucks and they limit the amount that can be electronically transferred. For example, we bought a car and wanted to transfer $25K to the dealer and could not do it through the app. I had to get a cashier's check. I keep a B of A account with zero fees to maintain some flexibility and because they have agreements with other banks internationally. I was able to use Barclays ATMs in the UK with no fees and normal exchange rates when I was there. It was seamless. I liked not having to use my credit cards all over the place and not having to carry a lot of cash. But we keep about 70% of our money with the CU.
The time they forged my signature to sign me up for a line of business credit I didn't need. We told management, they blew us off. Couple years later, this employee was indicted and jailed for stealing from customer accounts.
My husband had this happen with Fifth Third back in the day. It was a college town, so I think the employee felt overly confident that he could pull one over on people.
I travel frequently overseas and Charles Schwab has a great debit card for the checking account that refunds ALL atm fees from anywhere - because it is an online only bank. Sign up for a brokerage account (don’t need to use it) and you can get the free checking. They also do auto cut checks direct from the bank - you can set up one time only or recurring (eg for rent), and it will mail them and adjust automatically for weekends and holiday mail delays.
I have such a great story about them. I was traveling for work to Hong Kong and planned to pull out some cash at the airport. I hit an ATM and it wouldn’t go through. I called Schwab and they literally got someone on the phone that knew that airport and guided me to an ATM that would work.
Insane.
I also moved from BofA to Schwab when I got more involved in investing. Checking to brokerage transfers are usually instant (during business hours) so no need to wait to transfer money to buy funds. I am using SNSXX fund as a savings account too. Its yield is around 5% now, which is better than HYSAs which now have less than 4.40% APY, and BofA’s 0.01% APY savings account.
I love that they refund the ATM fees. My friends were surprised that I went to the closest ATM when I needed cash lol.
I opened a Schwab account for the overseas usage. I really wanted to switch to them completely, but it absolutely kills me how long transfers & transactions take with them.
I only use them for checking. I use ally for my hysa, and fidelity for my brokerage (as my 401k is there).
Transfer between ally - fidelity - Schwab are easy and take 1-2 days total so 🤷🏻♀️
Since figuring out how to use Fidelity's CMA and Brokerage accounts together, my banking needs have pretty much been fulfilled.
* https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Fidelity:_one_stop_shop#CMA_and_brokerage
ATM fee reimbursement worldwide
Free checks
Free wires (domestic and international)
High interest on cash that keeps up with HYSA rates without having to worry about swapping banks to chase the highest rate.
I've been a loyal Schwab customer for years now, but I've been really thinking about moving everything to Fidelity for the automated cash sweep into MMFs.
I know I can do it manually with Schwab, but I'm lazy.
Moved from Bank of America many years ago (besides mortgage and small checking that auto pays mortgage.
Been with capital one for 8 years now for a HYSA.
Just moved 75% of my savings to Wealthfront for the 5%. I have retirement accounts with them so feel comfortable with their brand.
I moved out of the local bank's area. Then I started using PNC on top of my work related credit union because they are nation wide and gave me more options while I'm traveling.
It's a bit edge-case but I dropped PNC because they kept deactivating my debit card without telling me. I mostly bank with online institutions (USAA/Ally) but I kept an account with PNC for rare cash deposits and anything I might need a physical location for, like currency changing. But PNC will deactivate your debit card if you don't use it often enough (I think 1 year?) for fraud prevention. The problem is they don't tell you. No notification (SMS/email/push) nor any notice in the app or website. You only find out on that rare occasion that you actually need to use an ATM and it tells you the account is locked, so you better hope the branch nearby is open. Pretty inconvenient for an account I was keeping *specifically* for that sort of infrequent usage. I even had automatic transfers set up in both directions to keep the account active after the first time it happened - it didn't work. Now, I use a credit union account for cash deposits. They were an okay bank otherwise, that policy just majorly pissed me off.
I'm pretty sure if you don't have a reoccurring direct deposit set up (like from pay), PNC charges for their account. They don't make sense at all in your scenario :)
I kept enough of a balance in that account that there was no fee. Honestly, they weren't a bad bank except for that *one* issue - but it was a dealbreaker. If there was *any* kind of warning or indication, I probably would have kept the account. Baffling that they couldn't even put a little exclamation point on the account page or something.
None. There’s a huge network of ATMs for fee-free transactions. Their app is solid. I get dividends, I get better rates than BofA. They sponsor a concert venue so there are perks for events there.
I don’t know why an average American would use a major bank, they don’t care about your business at all.
> I don’t know why an average American would use a major bank, they don’t care about your business at all.
Because my big, bad evil, major bank charges $0 fees and reimburses me for ATM fees, even ones abroad. I just got like 30 bucks in ATM fees from Japan and Korea refunded to me.
My local credit unions don't do that. Not only do they not reimburse fees, they charge me an additional fee for using my card abroad. F that.
I’ve gotten more than $30 in dividends in the past quarter from my credit union. Most Americans aren’t frequently traveling abroad and using ATMs, most countries have robust card payment infrastructure.
I swapped to a local credit union after my bank got hit with a class action lawsuit for reorganizing debit charges to intentionally overdraft customer accounts.
Years before they resorted to outright fraud and criminal activities, Wells Fargo used my mortgage escrow money to pay someone else’s property taxes one year and drug their feet until I got the Comptroller of the Currency involved. This was months after the County Tax Commissioner took time out of her to day to get a 3-way call with all of us to try to help sort out the situation. I refinanced my house and moved my accounts to a credit union (Pentagon Federal) and haven’t looked back. I’m with a different credit union now (RBFCU) but only because I moved and there are no penfed branches near me.
Had a local bank account that I didn’t use much with no fees that was bought out by a larger bank which proceeded to charge minimum balance fees. That was enough to give me a negative balance after I paid a bill with that account. I transferred just enough to get back to zero and immediately called to close the account, making sure the representative knew I was canceling entirely because of those fees (not sure if they actually care though)
My smaller, regional bank was bought out by a bigger bank maybe 7 or 8 years ago. My husband and I were looking at the updated policies and fees and things and noticed a charge to speak with customer service. At the time I'd been helping my FIL with keeping his bills paid and was no stranger to connecting with customer service, so the idea of being charged when I needed account help was a major deal breaker for me. Joined a credit union after that, no regrets. My old bank ended up getting bought out again by an even BIGGER bank a few years later.
As someone who worked in a FCU- I generally stick with local FCUs over commercial banks as much as possible. However, most of my rental properties are with KeyBank for Commercial lending, and a few other regional banks.
Two big moves in the last ~20 years: #1) my former bank was acquired by WF, 'nuf said. #2) Fidelity CMA simplified a bunch of things/negated HYSA rate chasing.
Wells Fargo charges a $5 non-Wells Fargo ATM fee (on top of the ATM fees themselves). Fuck you im not paying $9 in fees to get cash from an ATM. My current bank refunds all ATM fees so it’s totally free.
When I needed a new card, whether lost or just worn out strip after years, they would charge me $70 and not issue a temporary card. I was just to wait 14 days for my new card. This was Prosperity Bank back when I was in my early 20s.
I switched from Associated Bank once they got rid of free checking the same time they started advertising all over a baseball stadium. Went credit union and never looked back.
Besides the Wells Fargo stories, which are all super valid, I would love to switch from PNC Bank but there are no other options in my small town... The reason I'd like to change is that it takes **nine days** to transfer funds between my PNC account and Ally account. Absolutely absurd amount of time to do this simple maneuver.
We switched from Huntington to a local Credit Union. when we were buying a car, the dealership did an approval through them and one through Honda. Was talking to the credit union and they immediately refinanced the Honda one for 4% less, and they give .5% off all loans if you bank through them. They also have been way more personal, and all of our banking relationship is through them now. Not to say Huntington wasn’t good either, I have no complains really, just KEMBA offered a better rate and experience.
I had BB&T and left because there’s no real benefit to those big banks in regard to APY & those types of banks have shady fees.
Of course went to a local credit union. 4% APY, no shady fees = happy me.
Longtime Citi and TD customer, got fed up. Have been fine with SoFi for personal use. Their tech/app stuff is good and they are a real bank, not a layer, so less risk of loss of access to deposits.
Same with me when it comes to Citi. It went from excellent to just awful. Customer service is abysmal. It’s like they hate their customers so much they make the process as awful as possible. Switched to US Bank and I’ve been happy with them since.
Interest rates on savings made me switch that from bank of America over to synchrony. Still use bank of America for checking due to the convenience but that's about the only reason
I preferred an online bank but kept a small amount in my local credit union. Bank with SoFi now and am super happy. Also still have the credit union account but haven't walked in a bank in two years.
I was with PNC for a while and they were adequate, but when I started looking into personally divesting from fossil fuels I found they are one of the top financers of coal mining so I switched to a local mutual bank that invests a lot into my community and does not support any fossil fuel extraction.
I learned how much I was leaving on the table because my savings account with Well’s Fargo had a practically 0 interest rate. I had been banking with them 20 years and decided it was time to move on. Using Capital One now and earning 4.25 on my savings account.
I mean, every bank is owned by someone: big banks are owned by their stock shareholders, small banks may be privately owned but still by shareholders, credit unions are owned by their members, etc. Unless you just put all your money under your mattress, you will ultimately be banking with someone with some degree of profit motive, and that’s not a bad thing. You can imagine how short lived a bank that made losses would be.
That being said, I bank with a credit union and acknowledge that they are less motivated by pure profits and that their profits are ultimately returned to members via higher savings rates, lower fees, etc.
Had a local credit union but their service slowly became abysmal. Took me 3 months to get a replacement debit card because they kept not ordering it.
Currently with Capital One for about 7 years, haven't had a problem so far.
I went into Wells Fargo in July 2020. It was covid so I had to make an appt 7 days in advance. You needed to provide a “reason for your visit” when making the appt. I needed quarters to do my laundry, so I wrote that I needed $100 in quarters to do my laundry as the reason for my visit.
I arrived 10 mins early and stood outside. They let me in after a few minutes, person at door verified my name and appt and pointed me to the teller queue. They had two tellers, an older man and a younger woman. There was one person ahead of me in line and she went to the woman. After a few minutes the guy was available and called me over. I told him I was there to pick up $100 in quarters and he looked at me like I’d just killed his firstborn. His vibes turned terrible, like I became his enemy because of what I was asking for. He said he can’t do that, I told him I made the appt a week ago and said I’d be coming in to get quarters. He told me he couldn’t help me. I said “do I really need to make another appt and let them know you wouldn’t give me any quarters today?” He told me I’d need to wait for the other teller to see if she had quarters. So we stood for about 5 minutes in awkward silence while she finished up with the woman who was in front of me. After she finished, I watched him tell her I wanted $100 in quarters, and she said ok and? And he said he didn’t have them in his drawer, she asked why he was asking her, and if he went to the back to get more? He said no, I was going to see if you had them. She was staring blankly at him. It was like he was trying to communicate to her in code that he didn’t want to give me the quarters lol. She told him to go look in the back and he came back with quarters and he gave me the quarters like the other 10+ times I’d gone into branch to get my laundry quarters.
It was super bizarre and I closed my Wells Fargo account that month lol
I was with a Credit Union for years. I always thought they were much more personable. I left for three reasons. Convenience, ATM fees, and a conflict. Note this was 20+ years ago and banking has changed drastically since then.
Convenience: I had some rental property and there were a lot of reasons I needed to go into a branch or hit the atm. They were not always where I needed them to be. Finally, I was selling a vehicle and just needed a title notary. They required I fill in the buyer info. This has never been a requirement in my state and it was none of thier business who i sold to. No notary in town required it. It was just thier policy to protect you in case you walked out the door and lost the title.
I moved to BoA and have been thier ever since. What I like about them:
- convenient. Although far less. I still have to occasionally go to a branch or atm and there are enough around town to make this easier
- online banking. I personally feel they have one of the best online banking websites and apps. I do have CC and other accounts in other banks but I think theirs are the best.
-Friendly. I've been with them almost 20 years and have never had bad service (hard to say that about any place these days). People that work thier seem to like thier jobs.
- Fees. These days, banks have crazy fees. When your starting out it is difficult to keep a big enough balance to avoid the fees. I established accounts for my kids early on and found they had adequate programs for those that couldn't afford elaborate fees. I cannot say if this is still true as I dont have this concern any longer.
In between, I also had Wells Fargo and Chase Bank (mostly mortgage stuff) but found the dealing were just lacking. WF in particular I always felt thier employees hated thier jobs. They didn't treat you bad but, it wasn't like they were genuinely happy to serve you either. Now we know why, after they pressured thier employees to do shady things like open fake accounts on customers.
Switched from First Horizon to Ally to get a better HYSA rate. I've been happy with them ever since - decent rate, website works better and easier to navigate and move money back and forth. Plus, you get free concessions at Nascar Cup races due to Ally's sponsorship.
I haven’t fully moved over, but once I had the HYSA/MM enlightenment that many had, I had to swap my savings/emergency fund over to Ally.
I still have a little money in Wells Fargo, but that is pretty much just used to pay off cards monthly. Maybe I’ll move that too.
I used to have PNC and I had an account for two years. I had transferred my 401(k) from a previous employer into a retirement account which they managed, but after two years, I didn’t make any money on the account. There was a lot of activity, a lot of selling going on, and I received tons of prospectus, but no growth. I brought it up to them and they said well you have a little time to retire, but I hadn’t made any money; in fact I had less.
The second thing I didn’t like about them was they were part of a group of 31 US banks at the time who donated money towards the Dakota access pipeline back in 2017. I realized they were really political.
So I opened up an account with my local credit union and they have fantastic certificate deals. Love them and I never looked back..
First Tech credit union, although top 20 in the country, is basically credit union scum. 1) Their 5% HYSA is a complete scam. They never qualify you for the 5% rate and instead switch it to 0.01 the day after you sign up. It's buried in their disclosures but I've followed their rules and never qualified for the rate. 2) They approved me for a wimpy $500 loan to build my credit, ignored me for weeks, then later denied me for "being self employed" after handing over 2 years of taxes. I make over $100k but apparently no W2 = no loan from them. 3) Also had a hell of a time closing my accounts with them. They can kick rocks
I left Citibank years ago when they started charging a monthly fee to customers who had under $300 in their accounts. It didn't apply to myself but I couldn't continue to do business with a big bank taking advantage of those struggling to survive.
I switched to a local bank but found it was sometimes hard to access money without being penalized (ATM fees) so I went back to a big bank (TD Bank) that allowed me to access money while travelling but use the local bank for the majority of my banking.
A kid rear ended my car and the insurance company totaled it. I went to Bank of America, where I kept my checking and savings, for a car loan. The money I had was 2/3 of the cost of the new car in their accounts. They could see I was employed (and had been for a while) via my direct deposit. I thought it was a guarantee with my 800 credit score, but nope, I was still turned down.
Went to a local credit union, opened up a new account, then returned to BofA, and immediately withdrew all my money. Got the new car loan from my credit union. I've never looked back.
I walked into chase bank while moving with a bag of coins I found in my couch. They told me they do not accept coins at first and then when I pushed told me I had to roll them myself and sent me to the street to roll coins outside. When they checked and said I was off they sent me back out to roll them again. I was off, but they were empty and should have been able to help. They were rude to me the entire time.
Switched to Schwab and have had great customer service every time I call.
I've always used a smaller regional bank but we moved and switched to a credit union. There's a network of ATMs, they can print a replacement debit card on the spot and I can do mobile deposits if I ever get a check. They don't offer zelle but I have that set up with a discover online savings account.
Wells Fargo. I submitted payment to a credit card and made note of the payment confirmation number. For whatever reason, their system failed to process the payment. I was on a 0% intro offer on said credit card, and due to the “missed payment”, their terms allow the card to default to the penalty apr rate of 29.99%
I called them with the confirmation number, fully expecting them to resolve this. I was instead told that even if their system shows a payment confirmation after submitting payment, it’s my responsibility to make sure the payment went through. I escalated this multiple levels, and was told that sometimes, their online banking system shows the processing of the payment, but the payment fails to actually process. They admitted their system doesn’t always work correctly, but still said that even though their online banking told me they’d processed the payment, that it was my fault for not verifying that they actually processed the payment.
I had about $70k in savings with them at the time. I ended up paying the balance in full, closing the credit card and my bank accounts there and opening with a local credit union. Never again
Opened an account at Wachovia (now part of Wells Fargo) in college. They had overdraft protection. I was poor so it happened a decent amount and charged a fee (maybe 25 dollars?). Right off the bat, I wished I could have opted out. I'd rather get denied and use a credit card than pay that fee.
I get out of school and stop using that account. It's in negative balance, so I assumed they'd just send me a bill or something. Nah nah. What they did was continue overdrafting and "protecting" that account without sending me anything about it. Then I find out 2 years later that I owe them 3k for that service.
I've moved to a local credit union and can't imagine going back to a commercial bank. It seems like every few months one of them is being investigated for shady stuff. I don't see why anyone who didn't need their loan services would park their money in a commercial bank.
TD bank charged me $50 for being too poor. I was homeless.
When I had received a deposit from my mother, they took what I had left, over drafted me, and locked my account.
Aslo made it so I couldn't to open an account anywhere else due to the negative balance.
There will come a day when everyone will realize that legacy banks are fleecing them with fees and shit rates. There really isn’t a sound reason for people to not be switching to SoFi and Robinhood for banking and brokerage services. No overhead means industry leading rates, Roth IRA 3% match, individual brokerage 1% match, and fantastic user experiences. I understand older people are hesitant because of the novelty, but it really is leaving money on the table not to switch.
Military family. Had been with USAA since the beginning. During the 2019 shutdowns, we looked at salary advances since it was a tight time for us financially. Since we were a part of DHS and not DOD, USAA informed us they could not advance active duty pay. Instead they offered us a loan with a hard credit hit. Which they admitted we would not be approved for, since at the time of inquiry, no pay was being sent. Whole thing seemed very sketchy.
Thankfully, we were not that bad financially that we needed to utilize that. However, we were concerned if the shutdown were to continue. The day after the shutdown ended, we opened accounts with Navy Federal, moved all of our business there, closed USAA, and told others to stay TF away. NFCU has been wonderful to us, including business accounts and mortgage.
I was a Wells Fargo customer for 20+ years. Then all the stuff happened in the news and their customer service got real bad.
They were rude to me and my wife and blamed us for all their problems.
I withdrew all my money and moved to another bank.
Fast forward a few years. I got new windows. The window company does financing through Wells Fargo. Of course it's been a nightmare.
After this loan is paid off I will never do business with them again.
Capital One. A couple of years ago, they suddenly and without warning switched my High Yield Savings account to a regular Checking account. I was given no choice, just a notice that this was happening.
So I pulled out all my savings and went over to Citi. They have a pretty good HYSA.
I never closed my account with Capital One. As far as I know it's still there, just with a zero balance.
I deposited a large payroll check (bonus) at Chase and they slapped a 10 day hold on it. There was no reason for the hold. There was nobody at the branch that could remove it, only a phone number that was never answered. It would just ring and ring.
I got to the branch manager he says call the number. I said you call, we'll both talk to them. After the phone rang for about 5 minutes he gave up. I said if I have to wait 10 days to access my money, I'll pull everything out and close my accounts.
10 days later I went in and told them to close my accounts. They wanted to pay on a cashier's check, I told them no, I've already dealt with a bullshit hold. I'll take cash. They didn't have enough. Had to order it. So three days later they got the cash and I left with 70k stacked like a mumble rapper.
Your post has been removed [because it is a poll, survey, or request for personal data, experiences, or other types of self-reporting (rule 1)](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/about/rules). Posts asking for advice should be specific to your situation, not hypothetical or improbable, and include enough information for people to help. - If you would like to post a poll or survey, consider /r/samplesize. - If you would like to post an open-ended question not specific to your situation, consider /r/AskReddit. For example, instead of a post asking "How much do you spend on food?", please ask a question like "I need feedback on my monthly budget (having trouble with food spending).". *If you have questions about this removal, please [message the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fpersonalfinance&subject=Removal%20help%20request&message=Hello%20moderators,%20.%20%0a%0a%0aMy%20submission:%20https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/1ducbj3/what_made_you_switch_your_bank/%0a).*
Had Wells Fargo, and it's a pretty easy explanation. They're thieves, and I can't bank with thieves.
Anything that's for profit isn't for the people, it drives me nuts
This is one reason why people use a credit union instead. The profits are returned to the members.
>The profits are returned to the members How?
I don’t know if any one else can relate but my credit union has personally paid my credit card bill themselves/ asked for $0 certain months multiple times without ever asking me for money back.
My credit union gives an annual cash back bonus based on loan and savings balances. They also generally have lower borrowing rates.
I have 2 credit unions I use. One of them gives me a credit card with the highest flat rate, no fee, cash back % I've seen. The other gave me a mortgage rate nearly 1% lower than I could find elsewhere. Sometimes it's not about returning profits back to members as a lump sum, but rather about giving members better rates so you don't wind up with a ton of profits in the first place.
My local credit union, when googled, shows a shady ass house with weeds everywhere.
People are also shareholders and profit benefits them, so to say profit isn't for the people isn't actually true. It's just that not everyone benefits from that profit, which is the case for any business.
You can be for profit, and still keep the thieving to a minimum. lol I mean I am sure Cap1 "thieves" in their own rights but for the low man on the totem pole, it started with checking account fees. Been with Cap1 for at least 5 years now, and have several accounts because of how I like to structure my budgeting. I keep $2 in my primary checking account because I don't have to worry about overdraft fee's, monthly account costs. I go to my gas station, it holds a dollar, deducts the full amount a day later, and I transfer the funds and don't get penalized with an overdraft fee. For me, it prevents unwanted, or unexpected charges from being issued to my (debit card) account (i.e. subscription I forgot about). They tell me if declined, then I can go back into what ever that subscription is and cancel it. To each their own.. My severely untreated ADHD brain set this up years ago and it works for me. Now that I am treated it still makes sense to me to continue this way.
What do you mean by this? I have a credit card with Wells Fargo - active cash. And am a bit concerned with all the negativity surrounding WF
[For example](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wells-fargo-agrees-pay-3-billion-resolve-criminal-and-civil-investigations-sales-practices)
So help me close the gap. They opened a bunch of fake accounts and got slammed. I have 1 credit card account with them. I guess I don’t see much risk
That is not the only thing they've done, the *risk* is doing business with a company where that sort of thing is accepted or even possible. You might be fine, who knows.
[https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/wells-fargo](https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/wells-fargo)
Wells Fargo. They gave me the run around on refinancing my house. I already had the loan with them, had about 50% equity, had a perfect payment record for several years and maintained about a $30K savings balance forever. I wanted to refi to save a few points. I had been unemployed for a while following the 08 crash, but still made all my payments, had been back to work for a few months and was making about 30% more than when I initially qualified for the loan. My wife had been fully employed the entire time. They said I needed 90 more days of employment before they would discuss the refi. I went to a credit union and they started the process immediately. I pulled all my money from Wells Fargo.
Yeah I've been heavily considering a switch to a credit union! I used one for a HELOC because the rate / access to my home equity was unbeatable. Have you had any struggles with your credit union?
Their app sucks and they limit the amount that can be electronically transferred. For example, we bought a car and wanted to transfer $25K to the dealer and could not do it through the app. I had to get a cashier's check. I keep a B of A account with zero fees to maintain some flexibility and because they have agreements with other banks internationally. I was able to use Barclays ATMs in the UK with no fees and normal exchange rates when I was there. It was seamless. I liked not having to use my credit cards all over the place and not having to carry a lot of cash. But we keep about 70% of our money with the CU.
The time they forged my signature to sign me up for a line of business credit I didn't need. We told management, they blew us off. Couple years later, this employee was indicted and jailed for stealing from customer accounts.
I'm fairly confident this is up in the top 5 reasons of all time to leave a bank 😂
Let me guess either Bank of America or Wells Fargo
My husband had this happen with Fifth Third back in the day. It was a college town, so I think the employee felt overly confident that he could pull one over on people.
I travel frequently overseas and Charles Schwab has a great debit card for the checking account that refunds ALL atm fees from anywhere - because it is an online only bank. Sign up for a brokerage account (don’t need to use it) and you can get the free checking. They also do auto cut checks direct from the bank - you can set up one time only or recurring (eg for rent), and it will mail them and adjust automatically for weekends and holiday mail delays.
I have such a great story about them. I was traveling for work to Hong Kong and planned to pull out some cash at the airport. I hit an ATM and it wouldn’t go through. I called Schwab and they literally got someone on the phone that knew that airport and guided me to an ATM that would work. Insane.
I also moved from BofA to Schwab when I got more involved in investing. Checking to brokerage transfers are usually instant (during business hours) so no need to wait to transfer money to buy funds. I am using SNSXX fund as a savings account too. Its yield is around 5% now, which is better than HYSAs which now have less than 4.40% APY, and BofA’s 0.01% APY savings account. I love that they refund the ATM fees. My friends were surprised that I went to the closest ATM when I needed cash lol.
I opened a Schwab account for the overseas usage. I really wanted to switch to them completely, but it absolutely kills me how long transfers & transactions take with them.
I only use them for checking. I use ally for my hysa, and fidelity for my brokerage (as my 401k is there). Transfer between ally - fidelity - Schwab are easy and take 1-2 days total so 🤷🏻♀️
I wonder wtf is up with my account then. All transfers in my Schwab account take 5 days, compared to 1-2 days at most for every other account.
Since figuring out how to use Fidelity's CMA and Brokerage accounts together, my banking needs have pretty much been fulfilled. * https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Fidelity:_one_stop_shop#CMA_and_brokerage ATM fee reimbursement worldwide Free checks Free wires (domestic and international) High interest on cash that keeps up with HYSA rates without having to worry about swapping banks to chase the highest rate.
Echoing this. I kept my checking account at a bank, but moved my savings into Fidelity CMA and have it in a money market fund making ~5% interest
I've been a loyal Schwab customer for years now, but I've been really thinking about moving everything to Fidelity for the automated cash sweep into MMFs. I know I can do it manually with Schwab, but I'm lazy.
Moved from Bank of America many years ago (besides mortgage and small checking that auto pays mortgage. Been with capital one for 8 years now for a HYSA. Just moved 75% of my savings to Wealthfront for the 5%. I have retirement accounts with them so feel comfortable with their brand.
I moved out of the local bank's area. Then I started using PNC on top of my work related credit union because they are nation wide and gave me more options while I'm traveling.
It's a bit edge-case but I dropped PNC because they kept deactivating my debit card without telling me. I mostly bank with online institutions (USAA/Ally) but I kept an account with PNC for rare cash deposits and anything I might need a physical location for, like currency changing. But PNC will deactivate your debit card if you don't use it often enough (I think 1 year?) for fraud prevention. The problem is they don't tell you. No notification (SMS/email/push) nor any notice in the app or website. You only find out on that rare occasion that you actually need to use an ATM and it tells you the account is locked, so you better hope the branch nearby is open. Pretty inconvenient for an account I was keeping *specifically* for that sort of infrequent usage. I even had automatic transfers set up in both directions to keep the account active after the first time it happened - it didn't work. Now, I use a credit union account for cash deposits. They were an okay bank otherwise, that policy just majorly pissed me off.
My old bank did this with deactivated debit cards. I am with a credit union now.
I'm pretty sure if you don't have a reoccurring direct deposit set up (like from pay), PNC charges for their account. They don't make sense at all in your scenario :)
I kept enough of a balance in that account that there was no fee. Honestly, they weren't a bad bank except for that *one* issue - but it was a dealbreaker. If there was *any* kind of warning or indication, I probably would have kept the account. Baffling that they couldn't even put a little exclamation point on the account page or something.
Yeah I've heard this concern too when it comes to local banks / credit unions
I switched from my local credit union to Schwab because I don’t believe in paying ATM fees to withdraw my money.
BofA had terrible customer service. I switched to a locally owned credit union and couldn’t be happier.
I've heard some good things about credit unions! Is there any struggles you have with the one you joined?
None. There’s a huge network of ATMs for fee-free transactions. Their app is solid. I get dividends, I get better rates than BofA. They sponsor a concert venue so there are perks for events there. I don’t know why an average American would use a major bank, they don’t care about your business at all.
> I don’t know why an average American would use a major bank, they don’t care about your business at all. Because my big, bad evil, major bank charges $0 fees and reimburses me for ATM fees, even ones abroad. I just got like 30 bucks in ATM fees from Japan and Korea refunded to me. My local credit unions don't do that. Not only do they not reimburse fees, they charge me an additional fee for using my card abroad. F that.
I’ve gotten more than $30 in dividends in the past quarter from my credit union. Most Americans aren’t frequently traveling abroad and using ATMs, most countries have robust card payment infrastructure.
Chase -> C1. CD rates while still having brick and mortar locations. Internet rate of 0.01%...like.c'mon chase, that's the best you can do?
I swapped to a local credit union after my bank got hit with a class action lawsuit for reorganizing debit charges to intentionally overdraft customer accounts.
Sounds about right. Process them to hit the customers with as many fees as possible.
Years before they resorted to outright fraud and criminal activities, Wells Fargo used my mortgage escrow money to pay someone else’s property taxes one year and drug their feet until I got the Comptroller of the Currency involved. This was months after the County Tax Commissioner took time out of her to day to get a 3-way call with all of us to try to help sort out the situation. I refinanced my house and moved my accounts to a credit union (Pentagon Federal) and haven’t looked back. I’m with a different credit union now (RBFCU) but only because I moved and there are no penfed branches near me.
German here, old bank charged a monthly fee and had next to zero online Management possibilities.
Wells Fargo pissed me off and chime give me my pension five business days early. Easiest decision ever
Had a local bank account that I didn’t use much with no fees that was bought out by a larger bank which proceeded to charge minimum balance fees. That was enough to give me a negative balance after I paid a bill with that account. I transferred just enough to get back to zero and immediately called to close the account, making sure the representative knew I was canceling entirely because of those fees (not sure if they actually care though)
My smaller, regional bank was bought out by a bigger bank maybe 7 or 8 years ago. My husband and I were looking at the updated policies and fees and things and noticed a charge to speak with customer service. At the time I'd been helping my FIL with keeping his bills paid and was no stranger to connecting with customer service, so the idea of being charged when I needed account help was a major deal breaker for me. Joined a credit union after that, no regrets. My old bank ended up getting bought out again by an even BIGGER bank a few years later.
As someone who worked in a FCU- I generally stick with local FCUs over commercial banks as much as possible. However, most of my rental properties are with KeyBank for Commercial lending, and a few other regional banks.
Credit unions all the way. I'm a member of three different CUs. They are non-profit banks.
Two big moves in the last ~20 years: #1) my former bank was acquired by WF, 'nuf said. #2) Fidelity CMA simplified a bunch of things/negated HYSA rate chasing.
Yeah I'm a big fan of simplicity - as long as the HYSA rate is high *enough* and everything can easily be in one place, I'd prefer that
Wells Fargo charges a $5 non-Wells Fargo ATM fee (on top of the ATM fees themselves). Fuck you im not paying $9 in fees to get cash from an ATM. My current bank refunds all ATM fees so it’s totally free.
When I needed a new card, whether lost or just worn out strip after years, they would charge me $70 and not issue a temporary card. I was just to wait 14 days for my new card. This was Prosperity Bank back when I was in my early 20s.
I switched from Associated Bank once they got rid of free checking the same time they started advertising all over a baseball stadium. Went credit union and never looked back.
Yeah I've been considering a credit union too - any issues you've had with yours?
Nope! Its been fantastic! Have multiple loans through them and a mortgage. Very easy to work with.
Besides the Wells Fargo stories, which are all super valid, I would love to switch from PNC Bank but there are no other options in my small town... The reason I'd like to change is that it takes **nine days** to transfer funds between my PNC account and Ally account. Absolutely absurd amount of time to do this simple maneuver.
9 days!? Do you hand a check off to someone on horse and buggy 😂
We switched from Huntington to a local Credit Union. when we were buying a car, the dealership did an approval through them and one through Honda. Was talking to the credit union and they immediately refinanced the Honda one for 4% less, and they give .5% off all loans if you bank through them. They also have been way more personal, and all of our banking relationship is through them now. Not to say Huntington wasn’t good either, I have no complains really, just KEMBA offered a better rate and experience.
I had BB&T and left because there’s no real benefit to those big banks in regard to APY & those types of banks have shady fees. Of course went to a local credit union. 4% APY, no shady fees = happy me.
Longtime Citi and TD customer, got fed up. Have been fine with SoFi for personal use. Their tech/app stuff is good and they are a real bank, not a layer, so less risk of loss of access to deposits.
Same with me when it comes to Citi. It went from excellent to just awful. Customer service is abysmal. It’s like they hate their customers so much they make the process as awful as possible. Switched to US Bank and I’ve been happy with them since.
Interest rates on savings made me switch that from bank of America over to synchrony. Still use bank of America for checking due to the convenience but that's about the only reason
If you’re concerned about public companies operating only to please shareholders, you should be moving to a credit union.
I preferred an online bank but kept a small amount in my local credit union. Bank with SoFi now and am super happy. Also still have the credit union account but haven't walked in a bank in two years.
I was with PNC for a while and they were adequate, but when I started looking into personally divesting from fossil fuels I found they are one of the top financers of coal mining so I switched to a local mutual bank that invests a lot into my community and does not support any fossil fuel extraction.
I learned how much I was leaving on the table because my savings account with Well’s Fargo had a practically 0 interest rate. I had been banking with them 20 years and decided it was time to move on. Using Capital One now and earning 4.25 on my savings account.
I mean, every bank is owned by someone: big banks are owned by their stock shareholders, small banks may be privately owned but still by shareholders, credit unions are owned by their members, etc. Unless you just put all your money under your mattress, you will ultimately be banking with someone with some degree of profit motive, and that’s not a bad thing. You can imagine how short lived a bank that made losses would be. That being said, I bank with a credit union and acknowledge that they are less motivated by pure profits and that their profits are ultimately returned to members via higher savings rates, lower fees, etc.
Had a local credit union but their service slowly became abysmal. Took me 3 months to get a replacement debit card because they kept not ordering it. Currently with Capital One for about 7 years, haven't had a problem so far.
BofA -> Coastal Credit Union. Nuff said. Credit unions are better than money grubbing corporate thieves.
I went into Wells Fargo in July 2020. It was covid so I had to make an appt 7 days in advance. You needed to provide a “reason for your visit” when making the appt. I needed quarters to do my laundry, so I wrote that I needed $100 in quarters to do my laundry as the reason for my visit. I arrived 10 mins early and stood outside. They let me in after a few minutes, person at door verified my name and appt and pointed me to the teller queue. They had two tellers, an older man and a younger woman. There was one person ahead of me in line and she went to the woman. After a few minutes the guy was available and called me over. I told him I was there to pick up $100 in quarters and he looked at me like I’d just killed his firstborn. His vibes turned terrible, like I became his enemy because of what I was asking for. He said he can’t do that, I told him I made the appt a week ago and said I’d be coming in to get quarters. He told me he couldn’t help me. I said “do I really need to make another appt and let them know you wouldn’t give me any quarters today?” He told me I’d need to wait for the other teller to see if she had quarters. So we stood for about 5 minutes in awkward silence while she finished up with the woman who was in front of me. After she finished, I watched him tell her I wanted $100 in quarters, and she said ok and? And he said he didn’t have them in his drawer, she asked why he was asking her, and if he went to the back to get more? He said no, I was going to see if you had them. She was staring blankly at him. It was like he was trying to communicate to her in code that he didn’t want to give me the quarters lol. She told him to go look in the back and he came back with quarters and he gave me the quarters like the other 10+ times I’d gone into branch to get my laundry quarters. It was super bizarre and I closed my Wells Fargo account that month lol
Wells Fargo. Constant upsell every time I went in to deposit a check (before mobile deposit). Went to a credit union and never looked back at banks.
High pressure sales tactics making my stop take 2-3 times longer.
I was with a Credit Union for years. I always thought they were much more personable. I left for three reasons. Convenience, ATM fees, and a conflict. Note this was 20+ years ago and banking has changed drastically since then. Convenience: I had some rental property and there were a lot of reasons I needed to go into a branch or hit the atm. They were not always where I needed them to be. Finally, I was selling a vehicle and just needed a title notary. They required I fill in the buyer info. This has never been a requirement in my state and it was none of thier business who i sold to. No notary in town required it. It was just thier policy to protect you in case you walked out the door and lost the title. I moved to BoA and have been thier ever since. What I like about them: - convenient. Although far less. I still have to occasionally go to a branch or atm and there are enough around town to make this easier - online banking. I personally feel they have one of the best online banking websites and apps. I do have CC and other accounts in other banks but I think theirs are the best. -Friendly. I've been with them almost 20 years and have never had bad service (hard to say that about any place these days). People that work thier seem to like thier jobs. - Fees. These days, banks have crazy fees. When your starting out it is difficult to keep a big enough balance to avoid the fees. I established accounts for my kids early on and found they had adequate programs for those that couldn't afford elaborate fees. I cannot say if this is still true as I dont have this concern any longer. In between, I also had Wells Fargo and Chase Bank (mostly mortgage stuff) but found the dealing were just lacking. WF in particular I always felt thier employees hated thier jobs. They didn't treat you bad but, it wasn't like they were genuinely happy to serve you either. Now we know why, after they pressured thier employees to do shady things like open fake accounts on customers.
Switched from First Horizon to Ally to get a better HYSA rate. I've been happy with them ever since - decent rate, website works better and easier to navigate and move money back and forth. Plus, you get free concessions at Nascar Cup races due to Ally's sponsorship.
I haven’t fully moved over, but once I had the HYSA/MM enlightenment that many had, I had to swap my savings/emergency fund over to Ally. I still have a little money in Wells Fargo, but that is pretty much just used to pay off cards monthly. Maybe I’ll move that too.
6.75 interest in the checking account
I used to have PNC and I had an account for two years. I had transferred my 401(k) from a previous employer into a retirement account which they managed, but after two years, I didn’t make any money on the account. There was a lot of activity, a lot of selling going on, and I received tons of prospectus, but no growth. I brought it up to them and they said well you have a little time to retire, but I hadn’t made any money; in fact I had less. The second thing I didn’t like about them was they were part of a group of 31 US banks at the time who donated money towards the Dakota access pipeline back in 2017. I realized they were really political. So I opened up an account with my local credit union and they have fantastic certificate deals. Love them and I never looked back..
First Tech credit union, although top 20 in the country, is basically credit union scum. 1) Their 5% HYSA is a complete scam. They never qualify you for the 5% rate and instead switch it to 0.01 the day after you sign up. It's buried in their disclosures but I've followed their rules and never qualified for the rate. 2) They approved me for a wimpy $500 loan to build my credit, ignored me for weeks, then later denied me for "being self employed" after handing over 2 years of taxes. I make over $100k but apparently no W2 = no loan from them. 3) Also had a hell of a time closing my accounts with them. They can kick rocks
I left Citibank years ago when they started charging a monthly fee to customers who had under $300 in their accounts. It didn't apply to myself but I couldn't continue to do business with a big bank taking advantage of those struggling to survive. I switched to a local bank but found it was sometimes hard to access money without being penalized (ATM fees) so I went back to a big bank (TD Bank) that allowed me to access money while travelling but use the local bank for the majority of my banking.
A kid rear ended my car and the insurance company totaled it. I went to Bank of America, where I kept my checking and savings, for a car loan. The money I had was 2/3 of the cost of the new car in their accounts. They could see I was employed (and had been for a while) via my direct deposit. I thought it was a guarantee with my 800 credit score, but nope, I was still turned down. Went to a local credit union, opened up a new account, then returned to BofA, and immediately withdrew all my money. Got the new car loan from my credit union. I've never looked back.
I walked into chase bank while moving with a bag of coins I found in my couch. They told me they do not accept coins at first and then when I pushed told me I had to roll them myself and sent me to the street to roll coins outside. When they checked and said I was off they sent me back out to roll them again. I was off, but they were empty and should have been able to help. They were rude to me the entire time. Switched to Schwab and have had great customer service every time I call.
I've always used a smaller regional bank but we moved and switched to a credit union. There's a network of ATMs, they can print a replacement debit card on the spot and I can do mobile deposits if I ever get a check. They don't offer zelle but I have that set up with a discover online savings account.
Wells Fargo. I submitted payment to a credit card and made note of the payment confirmation number. For whatever reason, their system failed to process the payment. I was on a 0% intro offer on said credit card, and due to the “missed payment”, their terms allow the card to default to the penalty apr rate of 29.99% I called them with the confirmation number, fully expecting them to resolve this. I was instead told that even if their system shows a payment confirmation after submitting payment, it’s my responsibility to make sure the payment went through. I escalated this multiple levels, and was told that sometimes, their online banking system shows the processing of the payment, but the payment fails to actually process. They admitted their system doesn’t always work correctly, but still said that even though their online banking told me they’d processed the payment, that it was my fault for not verifying that they actually processed the payment. I had about $70k in savings with them at the time. I ended up paying the balance in full, closing the credit card and my bank accounts there and opening with a local credit union. Never again
Opened an account at Wachovia (now part of Wells Fargo) in college. They had overdraft protection. I was poor so it happened a decent amount and charged a fee (maybe 25 dollars?). Right off the bat, I wished I could have opted out. I'd rather get denied and use a credit card than pay that fee. I get out of school and stop using that account. It's in negative balance, so I assumed they'd just send me a bill or something. Nah nah. What they did was continue overdrafting and "protecting" that account without sending me anything about it. Then I find out 2 years later that I owe them 3k for that service. I've moved to a local credit union and can't imagine going back to a commercial bank. It seems like every few months one of them is being investigated for shady stuff. I don't see why anyone who didn't need their loan services would park their money in a commercial bank.
TD bank charged me $50 for being too poor. I was homeless. When I had received a deposit from my mother, they took what I had left, over drafted me, and locked my account. Aslo made it so I couldn't to open an account anywhere else due to the negative balance.
There will come a day when everyone will realize that legacy banks are fleecing them with fees and shit rates. There really isn’t a sound reason for people to not be switching to SoFi and Robinhood for banking and brokerage services. No overhead means industry leading rates, Roth IRA 3% match, individual brokerage 1% match, and fantastic user experiences. I understand older people are hesitant because of the novelty, but it really is leaving money on the table not to switch.
Military family. Had been with USAA since the beginning. During the 2019 shutdowns, we looked at salary advances since it was a tight time for us financially. Since we were a part of DHS and not DOD, USAA informed us they could not advance active duty pay. Instead they offered us a loan with a hard credit hit. Which they admitted we would not be approved for, since at the time of inquiry, no pay was being sent. Whole thing seemed very sketchy. Thankfully, we were not that bad financially that we needed to utilize that. However, we were concerned if the shutdown were to continue. The day after the shutdown ended, we opened accounts with Navy Federal, moved all of our business there, closed USAA, and told others to stay TF away. NFCU has been wonderful to us, including business accounts and mortgage.
I was a Wells Fargo customer for 20+ years. Then all the stuff happened in the news and their customer service got real bad. They were rude to me and my wife and blamed us for all their problems. I withdrew all my money and moved to another bank. Fast forward a few years. I got new windows. The window company does financing through Wells Fargo. Of course it's been a nightmare. After this loan is paid off I will never do business with them again.
Capital One. A couple of years ago, they suddenly and without warning switched my High Yield Savings account to a regular Checking account. I was given no choice, just a notice that this was happening. So I pulled out all my savings and went over to Citi. They have a pretty good HYSA. I never closed my account with Capital One. As far as I know it's still there, just with a zero balance.
I deposited a large payroll check (bonus) at Chase and they slapped a 10 day hold on it. There was no reason for the hold. There was nobody at the branch that could remove it, only a phone number that was never answered. It would just ring and ring. I got to the branch manager he says call the number. I said you call, we'll both talk to them. After the phone rang for about 5 minutes he gave up. I said if I have to wait 10 days to access my money, I'll pull everything out and close my accounts. 10 days later I went in and told them to close my accounts. They wanted to pay on a cashier's check, I told them no, I've already dealt with a bullshit hold. I'll take cash. They didn't have enough. Had to order it. So three days later they got the cash and I left with 70k stacked like a mumble rapper.
google 'socially responsible bank' and do your own reading, maybe get some suggestions here amalgamated bank comes to mind