I’ve had enough of the big banks. My personal experience was with WellsFargo, but this story could just as easily apply to any of them. You might think that a 10-plus year relationship with one might cause it to care a little bit about you as a customer, but that is clearly not the case.

I guess I can understand why. After all, I was just one of the millions of customers with a few bucks and an ATM card. There was nothing special about me. Except maybe that, at times in the past, I racked up some impressive Overdraft fees. You might think that would cause them to value me as a customer. Sadly, not even that was enough.

Like I said before, I banked with WellsFargo for more than a decade. Though I initially opened my account with a smaller, regional bank that WellsFargo aquired. WF never did anything spectacularly good or bad, but they were better than the other big bank I had used before (Bank of America) so I stuck with them. Over time, I grew less and less satisfied. Little things changed here and there that made me feel less like a customer and more like just another number.

The final straw came when I needed to call to check my balance one day. I only had to call to check my balance because my debit card wasn’t working at a store when I was trying to make a purchase. I knew I had plenty of money, so something must have been wrong, but I wanted to make sure.

To make a long story short…I had the money and the problem turned out to be something at the store and they were later able to process my transaction. All was well and I went on with my day. Until the next day…when I saw a $2.00 charge on my account for speaking to a banker on the phone- ridiculous! There is no way any business can justify this practice. I don’t care if it is ‘only’ $2.00 and I don’t care how much money they ‘lose’ by providing customer service. I am putting my money in their bank and I will not spend my money in order to talk to a person who works at the bank that is holding my money.

That was it for me and WellsFargo. I closed the account and opened a new one at a local credit union. My experience with the credit union has been a real pleasure. I can call them on the phone and actually talk to someone who works at the branch down the road. Crazy, I know…but it’s true. They even act like they are happy to talk to me. It’s an amazing difference and I strongly recommend you look into a local bank if you are at all unhappy with one of the big, national chains. There is simply no way the big chains can ever match the service of a good local bank. The only advantage I can see from a big bank is a large ATM network…but you can work around that. I’m happy with the change and I’ll never go back.

What do you think? Are there any good reasons to keep you money with a big bank?

By Eden, Fri 19 Dec 2008, Comments Categories: Rants