Thursday, August 23, 2012

The Bailey Building & Loan is Alive and Well in PA OR The Joys of Banking


No, I said Banking, not Baking......


Hubs & I have wanted to move our money to a credit union for some time now.
We finally pulled the trigger a few weeks ago.

We aren't the kind of folks you jump around from financial institution to financial institution.
If it's working for us somewhere, we stay put.

When we moved here in 2000 our huge national bank did not have a location closer than 30 minutes away.  While they had a branch near Hubs work it was darned inconvenient for me to do any banking.
So I opened up an account at the tiny local bank in our town so I could move the money between the 2 banks/accounts.

This worked ok for us until about 6 months ago, when our huge national bank was taken over by another huge national bank.
HNB #2 said we had to open up a different account in order to keep our old account since they didn't offer that old type of account anymore.
Otherwise, we'd have to pay fees for the honor of allowing them to hold and use our money.
How nice of them.....

So we opened the additional account with the min. they required of $100 and kept our real money in the old account.
If that was all it was going to take to make them happy, we figured we'd stick with them.
After all, they were one of the few big banks that didn't take TARP money.

Then they started pressing us to get debit cards for this "new" account.
I guess they figured they'd just keep at us and eventually make us start using this account as our main account, migrate our money over to this account and phase out the original account.
I don't like being pushed into anything, especially if I am not given a good reason to do so.
And then when we didn't ask for debit cards they mailed them to us anyway.  Hey, thanks for something I didn't want! lol

Next  they started calling here and dunning us via snail mail with great deals on stocks/bonds/mutual funds/cds/retirement plans/etc., as well as wanting us to come in to "speak with someone".....as in speak to someone who wanted to get control over investing our money.  No thanks!

I guess nobody ever heard of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and "don't annoy the piss outta your customers" at this company.
The old huge bank let us be but this new huge bank was annoying as hell.
Which surprised us, since we had used this new bank as our mortgage company and we had been very pleased with them back then in that capacity.


Anyway this pestering came to a head last month and we looked around to move our money and move it to a local institution if possible.
And we found a local credit union.

So we went in, had a look-see and opened a savings and a checking account there.
Everyone says that Credit Unions are full of sunshine and lollipops....or is that rainbows?
I never can remember.
At the moment we have 3 accounts(not counting the ING one)-2 at banks and 1 at the credit union.
Having our money all over the place is not a good thing.....it's driving me to distraction.

Eventually the plan was to close down one of the bank accounts and keep the CU account and the small regional bank account.


And things went well with the CU until this week.

I have an ING account so I went online to link the 2 accounts.
And ING notified me that the small deposits had been made to confirm the linking so I went to check them at the CU.
And there were no deposits.
For 4 days I waited for them to show up.
And the routing and account numbers were checked and double checked.
But still no deposits.
Great......

And I went into the CU and the teller couldn't fine the deposits either.

And then I tried to deposit a personal check at the CU this week.
And the teller told me that I can't deposit a personal check into the checking account if it is for a LARGE sum of money....a business check was a different story.
I would have to deposit it in my savings account, wait for it to clear and then come back and move the money from savings into checking.
WTF?!
And then I asked her what was the cut-off amount that constituted a "Large sum of money".
$200 or more.
WTFF?!
$200 may be a "large sum of money" in Dhaka, Bangladesh or Mogadishu, Somalia but in middle class American, not so much.

And then she said that I had to wait 2+ days after depositing a check to withdraw it.
WTFFF?!
It's not a case of we don't have other funds in that account to cover if the check in question was bad.
None of this was mentioned at any point when we set up these accounts at the CU.



I'm under the impression that this CU thinks it's the Bailey Building and Loan and Uncle Billy is running things!

There is only so much bullshit I can take before I close this CU account down too.  Maybe I'll just stick to my back-up bank....the small regional one.


So let me know.....how many accounts do you have and at how many financial institutions?
Do you use a credit union or a bank and are you happy with whichever you use?

Sluggy



15 comments:

  1. I have a savings and checking at a local credit union that is for personal use. All other banking and car loans etc. and business are at a credit union across town. i would have everything at one except I run two businesses and it is a conflict of interest to have personal banking at a my business bank. An LLC has certain rules. Love both credit unions.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the encouraging words Kim.
      I've heard good things about CUs and I like it being small and local....I just hope I can get this straightened out.

      Delete
  2. Very nice article. The information that you given was cen percent correct and i really appreciate your article. Thanks for the post.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I sure do use a credit union and have for years but its Navy federal credit union and I also use Usaa. A fedral bank but again it is restricted to military. Never a bit of problems but then again I almost never visit the branches. Most of our household banking is online.

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    Replies
    1. Another vote for CUs. 8-)
      Don't get me started on USAA however.....not good to deal with them when the person who hits you has them.

      Delete
  4. We have credit unions(4 different, 2 checking, 2 savings)and never had problems unless we tried to push things our way. They do have some rules, and for good reason.

    I believe no one at your credit union informed you that your account is "new" and subject to a few extra rules...then they go away. Especially if you have never done business with them. Big amounts of money get "laundered" everyday...not that we think Sluggy would do that;-) I talk with my tellers and have heard some crazy stories.

    Why do I love credit unions, especially small ones? Mr. Wonderful due to his PTSD wanted to handle something financial, so he handled his truck payments. I learned in June that he was nearly six payments behind. I called the CEO, talked to him, explained the situation and apologized over and over. Strangling the Mr. never crossed my mind...ha... as I was ordered last year to have all control and knew better. Anyway, I go down to San Diego and meet with the CEO who is very nice and helpful. We are all caught up and I have been making extra payments. Even without the extra payments, I believe John(CEO) would have been more than willing to help. You will never get that at a big bank, especially if the bank is looking for you to repossess your truck. We moved and the Mr. did not inform the credit union. I told the Mr. that was a blessing in disguise for him.

    Give it time and I think you can start making larger deposits etc.

    blessings, jill

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    Replies
    1. Jill, I am hoping this "large deposit" hold/put in savings thing is temp. because we are new. To look at me you'd never imagine I was a front woman for a large drug cartel. ;-)

      And I don't believe you didn't actually think about which strangling medium would be most frugal-rope, wire, used pantyhose or silk ties gotten from the Goodwill on half price clothing day.

      Glad you got your truck payment OOPS fixed. A bank would have NEVER worked with you, unless it was in Bedford Falls and your last name was Potter.....and then they would have still jacked up your interest rate and charged you penalties.lol

      Delete
  5. Sluggy

    We have several accounts...first is PSECU (was DH before we got married) that has no locations except Harrisburg! They do let you deposit at PNC banks and reimburse any MAC fees. Your deposit at PNC is immediately recognized and you can withdraw it immediately! No minimums balances except for $5 in your savings! We also have TD Bank accounts and keep all the minimum balances required to avoid fees!

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  6. Several years ago, I had a largish check from the federal government for my back pay on disability that my bank wanted to hold ten days until I could get my money. I was so furious that I took my check to a check cashing place and paid them a hefty fee to cash it on the spot. I knew people who would have taken my check and given me cash on the spot without a hefty fee.

    The bank was not going to get ten days interest from this large check. Now, I often take a large amount from my tiny check in cash the day after it is deposited, so I don't have to write so many tiny checks. Also, I want to cut down on the amount of interest the large banks gets from me and my money.

    That said, my bank charges me nothing for my account ot checks. My small direct deposit surely costs them more in accounting than they get in interest. However, I keep it because it is not local. I can cash a check anywhere out of the state. Okay, and how often do I go out of state? hmmmm Well, it could happen!

    The other account is a credit union with no branch within 25 miles of me. So, I cannot deal directly with them. I was able to get it because I worked for a federal entity. So, I keep it.

    Since you have cc you can use out of state, that aspect of local banking would not affect you. Lots of people I know have only good to say about credit unions.

    I always suspected you were the front for a drug cartel. So, it is true! All the selling of toiletries and toys at the flea market--likely story!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Finally, I am caught!lol I hope you get a big reward when you turn me in to the ATF.....

      Delete
  7. I have an account with ING and a credit union one. A couple of months ago the credit union announced they'd be charging $3 a month for the account. I am SO mad. I'm still trying to figure out what to do. I love ING but I do like having a local bank for some stuff you know? I dunno I think I might just close it and keep everything back at ING.

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    Replies
    1. I was unaware that you could have ING as your primary bank now. Is this a new change since they were bought out? Tell me more!

      Delete
  8. "WTFF?!"-I laughed really hard at this one.
    Den and I had been talking about opening up an account with a CU. Hmmmm, we may need to rethink this one. I like to be able to get to my money once the checker stamps it or whatever they do to it while I'm sitting in the van waiting for the magic tube thingy to puke up my receipt.

    ReplyDelete

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