Well Steve, you were right. And I think I’ll join you — at least in jumping Wachovia’s sinking ship.
I’ve been disappointed with them for a while. Their fees are incredibly steep: $2 to use a non-Wachovia ATM, $32 if I overdraw my account (which hasn’t happened for quite a while, thankyouverymuch), $10 to transfer money between accounts in any kind of automated way, and delays and failures with their Bill Pay service (like coming-out-of-the-wrong-account failures).
They do have very good customer service though — most of the time.
(Seriously though, I wonder where all the money goes. With the high fees and the terribly low salary there — I made $17,000/year as a teller there in 2005 — what are they doing with my money?)
And now they’re being bought by Citigroup. Whom I hate with an incredible passion. (I have a small student loan with them.) They have a terrible website, terrible customer service, are terribly slow about sending mail, simply don’t reply to email, don’t send me statements anymore (even though I’ve called them to correct that), and are just plain terrible.
I’m interested in the idea of a credit union, since it does things differently, but Wachovia has one thing going for them: they’re the biggest bank in Philadelphia and they’re probably more ubiquitous still in Atlanta (where I’m probably moving next year). Is the convenience worth it? I’m dubious.
So, other banks: Bank of America is certainly a choice, but that feels like exchanging apples for apples. ING seems like a solid bank, but I don’t know how their checking accounts or fees are. My ideal case, off the top of my head: a credit union with low fees that makes up for the fact that it doesn’t have branches everywhere by letting me use ATMs for free and offering a robust website for my daily needs.
I’m going to do some research in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, what bank would you recommend?
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I spent a good chunk of the past few days checking out local credit unions myself. I intend to open an account with one this weekend. I’ll keep my Citizens Bank account and use that for day to day spending, use the CU accounts for direct deposit and longer-term savings/MMA.
I’ve been more than happy with Citizens Bank (reasonable fee structure, good customer service, plenty of branches and ATMs) and would definitely recommend them to any friends looking for a bank, but recent reading has convinced me to try the credit union experience.
Yeah, wachovia would’ve been perfect to make that move if they didn’t implode. I’d suggest not actually closing your wachovia account but instead merely moving your direct deposit and shifting your spending. I did exactly that (aided with money transfers via INGdirect) and my last month’s statement from wachovia had opening & closing balances of $10.66.
Perhaps try ING — they can be used remotely equally well from philly or ATL.
btw, why can’t I RSS your entire comments stream? I don’t want to RSS just comments for this thread…
Comments Feed is listed to the left. I’ll look into getting it advertised to the browser like my posts’ feed is.
I’m also looking into other comment tracking; look for an upcoming post.