Today, after nearly twenty years with Bank of America (formerly Nations Bank) I
gave them the boot. Was kind of sad. My relationship with BOA predates so much
in my life.
But all things come to an end.
Except this relationship wasn’t that good. It wasn’t like the horror stories
I’ve heard from some people, but in 2015, BOA showed their hand with what I
considered a deceitful practice.
Being the type that rarely goes into the bank, I never expected a trip two
Decembers ago to result in being fucked for no apparent reason.
I went into deposit a check. I was told by the teller “hey, since you’re such a
loyal BOA customer, we’re gonna hook you up with a better interest rate on your
savings account”.
I thought, “damn, that’s fucking great. Definitely not one of those horror
stories I keep hearing about.”
Wrong.
To “reward” me, my savings account was recoded to have a significantly higher
minimum balance. Something like 8x what it was prior to the day I went in to
deposit the check.
Shame on me for not reading the fine print of what they wanted to do to my
savings account. Shame on them for not disclosing what they wanted to do to my
account outside of saying I’d earn more interest.
Fast forward to this past year when we moved to Austin. Up until the move, we
had been unknowingly keeping the minimum balance that was required to avoid a
fee.
We had to pull some money out of the account to cover security deposits and
miscellaneous moving expenses, thus dropping below minimum to avoid fees.
Took about 6 months before we noticed that BOA was taking 12$ a month out of the
account. Shame on us again for not being more on top of that.
Upon contacting BOA about this to see if we could get the fees reversed, the
best they could do was reverse the last 3 months of fees. Because you know,
that’s how their system works.
It may sound petty, but Bank of America lost my business over 36 bucks and
because they made it very clear that I’m not that valuable of a customer.
Fortunately, the breakup was a fairly painless process. Took less than 10
minutes and everybody I had dealt with today was quite pleasant and helpful.
So where am I banking now? Decided to give Capital One 360 (formerly ING Direct)
a go.
Zero minimums or fees, better interest on savings, and even a small bit of
interest on checking! Large checks can be deposited from the ATM and they have
a pretty great website and app. You can even spin up additional savings accounts
and set goals and automatic savings and all that fun stuff.
They even have a referral program, so if you’re in the market for a new bank and
are thinking of going to Capital One, be a pal and use my referral
link
