Bank of Aggravation
Posted on Monday, March 6th, 2006 at 13:32.
I recently opened a checking account with Bank of America. I am a (mostly) happy customer with a credit union in California. However, half of my income is earned at Emerson. Emerson refuses to offer direct deposit for student employees. (Not surprisingly, Emerson will gladly arrange direct payments from students.) I had to mail my Emerson paychecks across the country every two-weeks. As a typical poor college student, I need cash almost immediately.
Bank of America is everywhere in Boston, thanks to its buyout of Fleet. I began looking into its banking options on its website. I noticed that Bank of America allows you to open an account online. How nifty for the iPod generation, I thought.
And then applied. The application was quick and worked in Safari perfectly (unlike some poorly developed banking websites). Upon submitting, I was told that my account could not be opened immediately for some reason the website wouldn’t give me. This was the beginning of much frustration.
The next day, I went into a local branch to ask, “WTF?” I signed a piece of paper and was told that my account should be activated soon. I asked if I could make a deposit. I was told that I could, but that I would have to use an out-of-state deposit form that required significantly more information to make a deposit at the branch.
“What state am I out of?” I asked.
“Texas, it looks like. They usually put the online sign-ups in Virginia,” the teller said with some dismay to the online sign-up.
Fortunately, I can make a streamlined deposit at any ATM.
Then there was the issue of online banking. Bank of America uses your SSN as your default user name. Are these people stupid?! Even if they aren’t, they are living pre-identify theft crisis. Bank of America makes it so complicated because my PIN in not my SiteKey is not my password is not this or that or anything else you might have entered during the multi-step account setup. Thanks to Arthur, I understand what all of the different things are, but shouldn’t it be painfully obvious?
Bank of America has my business until August when I move to LA. I will lose my free student account by then anyway since they only offer 6-months to students without parents who also use the bank.
I’m not impressed.
Getting rid of that bank was probably my best financial decision to date. I’ll never bank with a commercial bank again. I’m sticking to credit unions.
It’s hard to find a good bank. I’ve always really liked Key Bank but I don’t think they have them in California, just mainly the mid-west and Florida.
Whoa, you’re moving to LA! I vaguely recall a conversation concerning this a while ago, but nevertheless it was news to me! We’ll have to hang out sometime.
Also, I bank with Washington Mutual, and for the most part am quite pleased with them.