In our print cover story this week, I write about how to quit various services that have a track record of trampling on consumer rights.
One thing you should quit right now: Bank of America. And any other big, national bank. If you don’t have loans or other complicated financial arrangements going on with your bank, closing your account and opening one at a small, local bank or credit union can take as little as nine minutes. Moving my money wasn’t something I ever considered until the financial crisis, but now I’m totally glad I did.
There’s feel-good, community-loving reasons to use local banks or credit unions (as Angela Martin explains in the feature: “A bank like Albina Community Bank makes more small business loans in Oregon than a big bank like Bank of America by a factor of 10. Why? Because they’re on the ground.”) but there’s purely selfish reasons, too. State records show that local banks and credit unions get way less complaints from customers complaining that they were scammed or abused by their financial institutions. Some of that is definitely due to the fact that they have less customers overall in Oregon, but the stats show a significant difference in service. Check it out:
Also, a must-have link: Lists of Oregon consumer complaints against companies.
Right. That reminds me to move my money out of Chase. It’s hard to find a decent replacement bank though. Good bill pay, passable ATM coverage and an in-person location within walking distance from my home are hard to find in the local banks.
Here’s something to think about though. How many more customers does BofA have compared to Umpqua? Of course BofA is going to have the most complaints because they’re the countries largest bank and have an extremely higher customer base then some smaller local banks.
I switched from Wells Fargo to First Tech credit union many years ago, and last year switched from First Tech to USAA. I have my business accounts with Unitus credit union.
Cons: First of all, there are no cons whatsoever with USAA.* The downsides of credit unions include sparse location of branches (as Fruit Cup mentions), which can be offset by your CU’s membership in a CU network that allows you to bank at other CUs in the area. They also tend to have subpar websites compared to big commercial banks, with fewer cool whiz-bang features.
Pros: Many CUs will refund ATM fees in acknowledgement of their weak physical presence. First Tech has AMAZING customer service – I once called at 10am on a Saturday and was speaking to a real live human being, less than 20 miles away, within 2 minutes. CUs in general also seem a lot less scummy when it comes to doing things like selectively prioritizing withdrawals over deposits to squeeze the maximum amount of late fees out of customers.
* You DO NOT have to be a USAA member (military, retired military, military dependent) to bank with USAA. It’s the best deal going: all ATM fees are refunded, amazing customer service, the best online banking interface I’ve experienced and mobile deposits – I take a photo of the front and back of a check with my iPhone and Viola! It’s instantly deposited in my account. INSTANTLY. My clients hate this, but DAMN is it convenient.
If you do qualify as a member, you can also get sickeningly low car insurance rates and a member refund every year. But frankly, their banking is freakin AWESOME. There are no branches anywhere except San Antonio, TX, but I’ve never needed one.
So you take a photo of the check and then what do you do with the check? *mind boggled*
Right on! I moved from BofA to First Tech (I’m a ‘puter geek) and the service has been amazing. It took just a few minutes to set up my acct., I can make deposits into CU ATM’s all over the city (even many ATM’s for other CU’s), and the website/ATM services are so effective that I don’t think I’ll need to use a branch (although there are a couple that I can get to fairly easily). The personnel at the branch I used to start the acct. are extremely friendly and tremendously helpful. Also my checking acct. earns interest… I don’t need to shuttle money between checking/savings.
I might have to look into this. I was in a credit union when I lived in Virginia and loved it. But I’ve been with Bank of America since I moved, which has been like 5 years now, and never had a complaint. It would depend on the membership requirements for the credit unions here and how easy they are to access when I’m traveling.
I switched to Albina years ago, and have been absolutely delighted with them. Northwest Resources credit union is also very good. I’ll gladly take a slight decrease in convenience for the huge increase in customer service.
While I hate BofA, they probably have more customers in oregon than some of these smaller banks/credit unions. The data would be far better displayed as complaints per 1000 customers rather than just raw number of complaints.
If a Credit Union wants to take the burden of moving all my accounts that autodeposit/withdraw from my bank monthly, be my guest. Otherwise it’s a complete PITA and I ain’t budging until someone really pisses me off.
I have my mortgage through Chase and they just reduced my rate .25% with no penalties/fees at all. I can’t complaint about that, it’ll save me tens of thousands over the lifetime of the loan.
The only minor inconvenience I have had from my regular bank is that it’s been held up twice when I wanted to go inside.
I’ve been using Albina for business banking for nine years, and switched personal accounts there four years ago. they have been fantastic. I would highly recommend them to everyone.
the downside is the lack of branches/ATM’s, but with automated deposits it has rarely been an issue, and if you need cash just go to the grocery store and buy a pack of gum or a candy bar. it will be cheaper than the charges you’d pay at another bank’s ATM, and you can eat it.
None of you must have current student loans. I have to keep a US Bank account open specifically because switching my student loan payment to another account is literally a 4 month process.
Every time this issue pops up, I flog Advantis – 3% cash back on checking, all foreign ATM fees refunded, great loan rates.
Also, not-at-all-confidential to TWSS: I sincerely hope you never get injured in a car crash with USAA as your carrier.
not that i don’t support switching to local banks, but i do wonder, what percentage of local customers do these totals represent? sure, bank of america has a huge lead over the others, but i’d imagine they have far more customers as well. just a thought!
I’ve either been with a Saving and Loan or Credit Union my whole life. After all the horror stories I hear I can’t imagine making the switch.
I have student loans but not with one of the big banks anymore. The big guys can be more ‘convenient’ but I’d rather go a little out of my to not feel like I’m being taken advantage of.
Wouldn’t this be more useful if it were data per customer?
I’m also unconvinced by the assumption that the only kind of business loan I should care about is a small business loan in the state I happen to live in. This seems weirdly parochial and/or nativist.