TR Forums

Where do TR folk bank? Do you use a local credit union, regional bank, big bank or an online bank? I am using a combination of them. I tried switching over completely to local CUs but wasn't completely satisfied and am mostly going with a combination of big banks and online banks. Some issues I had with local CUs include bungling tax document as well as poor digital tools. What is your choice and experience for banking services?

I'm at a loss as to what a local CU would have to do with Tax documents. I haven't used a traditional bank since the late 90's and I don't expect that to change any time soon.

Type "google news wells fargo" in a browser to find out why.

To OP: Ally Bank, back in 2010 truly the only consumer-friendly bank I could find. I was fed up with being a model BoA customer and still getting feed to financial death (they have such precise timing to create such fees, it's almost like it's handled by a computer in the background. Hmmm.) Today CapitalOne seems like it's joined Ally as consumer-friendly.

To Vhladictes: I did what you suggested, and it's a bit unclear since everyone's Google results are a bit different, but I'm guessing it's about the overdraft fees and cross-selling. In other words, greed. The word that drove me from traditional banks in the first place. Sometimes, tradition needs to go to hell in a handbasket.

Credit union

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)

online and local branch 5 mins away

recently closed 2 different banks CIBC, CU

MOSFET wrote:

To OP: Ally Bank, back in 2010 truly the only consumer-friendly bank I could find. I was fed up with being a model BoA customer and still getting feed to financial death (they have such precise timing to create such fees, it's almost like it's handled by a computer in the background. Hmmm.) Today CapitalOne seems like it's joined Ally as consumer-friendly.

To Vhladictes: I did what you suggested, and it's a bit unclear since everyone's Google results are a bit different, but I'm guessing it's about the overdraft fees and cross-selling. In other words, greed. The word that drove me from traditional banks in the first place. Sometimes, tradition needs to go to hell in a handbasket.

I haven't dealt with a national bank yet that hasn't calculated overdrafts by computer. I got lucky because my first employer had a preferred CU and recommended that I open an account, so I never had to deal with the issue, but I know people that have had charges delayed for 3 weeks (!) in order to generate an overdraft.

At first I thought this was unique to Wachovia... or whatever they call themselves these days, but when a person I know opened a BoA account the same exact thing happened.

EDIT: Wachovia became Wells Fargo! Well, there you go...

Regional bank headquartered here in town, and prior to that another regional in my previous town. No complaints.

I do all of my banking (except for a few old credit cards that I never use anymore) with USAA, which is an awesome online bank. It's available to military members and their families, if you have any way of getting in to it, I'd highly recommend them.

I use a national bank for convenience. I don't trust them very much, but they haven't screwed me over. I like the idea behind credit unions, and used one when I was in college, but I'm not familiar enough with the local financial industry to know which ones are reputable and which are cruising for a scandal.

I am surprised that nobody's said mattress or buried gold coins yet.

Both are insured to $250,000: banks by FDIC and credit unions by NCUA. Credit unions tend to have better service, but bank branches are available in more areas if you travel.

Main accounts at a regional bank here. They have got the online stuff figured out and working pretty good so day to day is easy. But, we can still walk into a branch and get good home town service, too.

Contrast that to another regional bank I was forced to deal with for my parent's trust accounts. They did not have the online thing figured out at all. Too much ridiculous security to be useful. You could look at the balances from multiple computers, but through cookies only one of your machines could actually make transactions. So, that locked it to my desktop at home. Kind of pointless to allow 'online banking' where you stil have to go to one location to do anything. It's like they'd never thought of laptops and cell phones and how you might have more than one. And all this after entering user name, then password, then answering a security question. So glad we finally got that wrapped up and I never have to deal with them again.

So 50/50 for the regionals. I am happy with ours. It typically doesn't cost anything to open an account. So you could give a new bank a trial run before switching all your accounts.

Large regional bank that acquired the bank I was a customer of since graduating from college. They've pissed me off occasionally (most notably when they increased the minimum balance required to avoid being charged a monthly fee, and the refi we did through them seemed a bit messier than it should have been), but overall they haven't been too bad.

Speaking of fees, how common is it these days to get whacked with double fees (both the other bank and yours) when using someone else's ATM? Had that happen recently, and it pissed me off. I almost never use other banks' ATMs (basically only when I'm out of town and run out of cash), so I don't hit the issue of ATM fees very often to begin with, let alone double fees.

Rakhmaninov3 wrote:

I do all of my banking (except for a few old credit cards that I never use anymore) with USAA, which is an awesome online bank. It's available to military members and their families, if you have any way of getting in to it, I'd highly recommend them.

Same here. You can join them if a friend in the military or a veteran member recommends you. No prior military is required anymore. It is a non-profit bank established back in the 80s for Army officers only, and has grown into one of the most respected and highly rated banks in the country. Was totally untouched by the crisis in 2008. Their on line banking is amazing. Includes a powerful app.

Banked for years with large national banks, Wachovia and then BB&T.

Now everything is at Credit Union. No fees and much better interest rates.

ATM's have gotten unusable with all the fees. I use Chase for my cash bank so I can cash checks. They make me do direct deposit of $500 a month to avoid fees. They used to have ATM's in all Walgreens but seem to be yanking a lot of them. I can't stand Chase but they are convenient. Though what's up with them not taking coins unless you roll them yourself . They seem to be part of the "anti-cash" movement globally.

All my real banking is done through Alliant Credit Union and I love them. I love their website, I have no issues with their tax documents. I used them for a car loan in the past. The only thing they haven't come through on is updating their IRA so you can invest in more things for the IRA.

My bank has enough ATMs around the area that it isn't a big issue unless I'm away from home. But the proliferation of ATM fees in general is just one more nail in the coffin for cash.

I'm of an age where it feels strange to charge anything that costs less than $15 or so, and if I don't have at least a couple of 20s in my wallet I've got the thought "I need to hit an ATM soon" in the back of my mind. Back in the day, it was quite common for businesses to have a $10 minimum for credit card purchases. OTOH people under the age of 30 seem to have no qualms about putting a pack of gum or a soda on the card.

As one of those people under 30 (for a few more months), cash is just a terrible way to pay for anything. You have to carry coins to go along with said cash to avoid ending up with extra coins in your pocket. My credit card is as good as cash for almost everything, and it is arguably more secure.

Okay, I do see why someone would carry cash--and I do carry enough to cover something "just in case"--but I thought someone might like the perspective.

For banking, I started with Bank One in high school, and they got bought by Chase. So far, I haven't had any issues, but my balances have been solid since I started working. I pay most of my bills online so I don't have to worry about real checks, and my credit card is linked to my bank account so I see all my balances at the same time (I also keep the CC balance at $0). Long term I think I will stick with Chase for that day-to-day stuff, but I'd like to move savings over to a local/regional credit union for if/when I try to buy a house.

superjawes wrote:

Okay, I do see why someone would carry cash--and I do carry enough to cover something "just in case"--but I thought someone might like the perspective.

Oh, I already understand the motivation, and why it makes sense. It's just that old habits are hard to break.

superjawes wrote:

As one of those people under 30 (for a few more months), cash is just a terrible way to pay for anything.

Yes, because governments and banks ALWAYS have our best interests at heart.

Hawkwing74 wrote:

Yes, because governments and banks ALWAYS have our best interests at heart.

Hey, I resemble that remark!

About cash, while I do put a lot of stuff on credit card, I also am not comfortable with the anti-cash "movement". Online banks make it easy to take out cash because most of them waive off any ATM fees and reimburse you any fee charged by ATM operator but OTOH they don't allow cash deposits at all. Brick and mortar banks allow you to deposit cash at ATM but usually charge ATM fee if you use somebody else's ATMs.

just brew it! wrote:

My bank has enough ATMs around the area that it isn't a big issue unless I'm away from home. But the proliferation of ATM fees in general is just one more nail in the coffin for cash.

I'm of an age where it feels strange to charge anything that costs less than $15 or so, and if I don't have at least a couple of 20s in my wallet I've got the thought "I need to hit an ATM soon" in the back of my mind. Back in the day, it was quite common for businesses to have a $10 minimum for credit card purchases. OTOH people under the age of 30 seem to have no qualms about putting a pack of gum or a soda on the card.

I've just resorted to using cashback from stores as a means of hitting up the ATM. It's a lot easier than dealing with ridiculous ATM draft fees.

SecretMaster wrote:

I've just resorted to using cashback from stores as a means of hitting up the ATM. It's a lot easier than dealing with ridiculous ATM draft fees.

I do that at Costco. I don't like to use my debit card for retail purchases unless I have no other choice though, since the fraud liability rules are less favorable to the customer.

Vhalidictes wrote:

Type "google news wells fargo" in a browser to find out why.

Hasn't affected me, and for better or worse, WF has branches and ATMs pretty much everywhere.

On the CC side, the main thing is to keep at least two cards running with different providers so that a fraud alert doesn't shut you down for the usual 3-5 days it takes to process the claim and reissue.

ludi wrote:

On the CC side, the main thing is to keep at least two cards running with different providers so that a fraud alert doesn't shut you down for the usual 3-5 days it takes to process the claim and reissue.

To their benefit, my current CC provider gives each card on the account a different number, so the compromise of one does not automatically compromise the other. I also make it very clear to the Security Dept. that I will be expecting a Fed-Ex envelope in no more than 2 calendar days, period. They always do it. Haven't carried multiple CC accounts in at least 20 years.

OT, deposit accounts & mortgage are at a credit union. I left the car loan at Chase (Subaru Motors Finance) because the CU wouldn't match the rate on a refi when I bought it. Because of the mortgage balance (some affinity program), the family gets no CU surcharge on foreign ATM transactions and up to $8/month rebate on foreign ATM-level surcharges (per card). That said, a big chain of drug stores in the area houses ATMs from my CU, so finding a no-charge is easy.

If I could only get them to change one of the 3 drive-thru lanes at their main office to a drive-thru ATM.

A few years ago I had my debit card get shut down in San Diego just because I tried to use it. Apparently they'd had a flood of fraud happening in SoCal, so any out-of-state card that got used in the San Diego area was automatically suspended.

just brew it! wrote:

A few years ago I had my debit card get shut down in San Diego just because I tried to use it. Apparently they'd had a flood of fraud happening in SoCal, so any out-of-state card that got used in the San Diego area was automatically suspended.

Needless to say, a "few years ago" was multiple generations of tech ago in the ever-going tech war.

I've been using Think since they were IBM Credit Union (I almost typed ICBM...yeah.)

...They've had their moments, but for the most part they've been great.

LostCat wrote:

I almost typed ICBM...yeah.)

That would have been the McConnell AFB (Titan II base) Federal Credit Union my parents joined on Dad's 3-year ROTC active duty tour (and site of my birth; base hospital, not the CU).

Captain Ned wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

A few years ago I had my debit card get shut down in San Diego just because I tried to use it. Apparently they'd had a flood of fraud happening in SoCal, so any out-of-state card that got used in the San Diego area was automatically suspended.

Needless to say, a "few years ago" was multiple generations of tech ago in the ever-going tech war.

Yeah, it was pre-chip.