I’m currently with Chase in part because it’s the only major bank within easy walking distance (it’s literally across the street). We’ve bought a new place and when we move into it we’ll have a lot of other options. If you had to choose one of the following banks what would you choose?
Chase
Citibank
Wachovia
TD Bank
Capital One
Bank of America
Carver
Banco Popular
Neighborhood credit union (choice of two)
All of those are within about a 5 minute walk from our new place (!).
I doubt I’ll go with Banco Popular, Carver or the neighborhood credit unions. Citi is pretty weak these days, so can’t see going with them either.
I’m leaning towards Wachovia since it’s part of Wells-Fargo and our mortgage will be with Wells, but it’s the least convenient of any on the list (a 7 minute walk in the “wrong” direction). TD Bank is my other top contender.
TD Bank is a Canadian bank that’s trying to make huge inroads in the U.S., you may find some competitive deals with them. I’m with TD and I haven’t really had any problems with them. I don’t know what their U.S. counterpart is like.
In previous threads it seems B of A also has a reputation of closing accounts they know to be adult-related… It’s hit or miss - so I’m not sure I want to deal with that possibility…
You know, IMHO it’s a bunch of bull. People start making certain accusations with out substantial proof. If you have proper business dealings with ANY bank they don’t care…as long as it’s legal. That’s at least what my bank manager says.
Proper business dealings = done in a business-like manner
Been with the TD bank for almost 35 years now, never had any issue, but then that is their Canadian presence, haven’t a clue how their American counterparts will work.
You know, IMHO it’s a bunch of bull. People start making certain accusations with out substantial proof. If you have proper business dealings with ANY bank they don’t care…as long as it’s legal. That’s at least what my bank manager says.
Some of those making the statements, have a lot of creditability. Banks do make decisions on a whim, at times. Seen it with CIBC and the Royal a few times, so it just isn’t about banks not caring, it is more of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing. Also seen policies be different from the corporate angle, to the local branch.
I have 10 Bank accounts - brick and mortar and on-line. All issue cards. You can never have too much redundant backup in times of trouble. Don’t wait for one to do you wrong before opening another. You only need $100 to open, and $1 to keep it open.
BoA just turned off the monthly fee on my checking account because I don’t write checks (haven’t since 2005 or 2006), and I don’t go in to bother the Tellers. It’s called 'eBanking"… As long as you stay out of the Teller line, you don’t get charged the monthly fee.
www.HSBC.com has very few brick and mortar branches in the US, so when you use your bank card in someone else’s ATM, they rebate the $2-$3 ATM fee charges by that ATM owner. I had 4 last month.
Chase has some nice United Airlines rewards points on their cards (Bank cards, not just credit cards).
Ally.com pays huge interest. ING.com pays good interest as well. As does HSBC.com .UK .FR. There’s really no reason for a brick and mortar bank - unless you deposit checks.
Chase is running a TV commercial right now that you can get an iPhone App and take a pic of a check and deposit it via your phone. Chase also sells those little check readers like they have at Teller windows, so you can scan the MICR numbers and deposit checks from your desktop/laptop.
You’re like my mother-in-law - she squirrels money away in lots of different accounts. I can’t be bothered with that. I want one bank and I want someone to know my name when I walk into the local branch. I’ve got that now with Chase - it’s just there are times when I don’t like their fees and their service can be pretty awful. The small business woman knows me and greets me by name when I walk in, but then she manages to mess things up on a regular basis and they’ve set it up so she calls all the same 800 numbers that I do - she can’t actually do much anything herself.
And then you can go to www.Mint.com (owned by Quicken/Intuit) and open a free account, and register your Bank accounts, and like e-mail, they go and get all of your transactions from all of your banks, and displays them in a typical looking register.
No more Quicken, QuickBooks, with manually downloading transactions in QIF files and then importing them to QB. But, you can export from Mint.com and import to any bookkeeping platform… I choose CSV and upload to my SQL table, and I wrote a PHP script to analyze my transactions for tax reporting purposes… and monitor accounts receivable from my VOD/Affiliate program sponsors.
Mint.com is mostly just US - I just logged in to the link above and they are now also Canada. I haven’t gone searching for a UK/European equivalent.
[QUOTE=Gaystoryman;84032]Been with the TD bank for almost 35 years now, never had any issue, but then that is their Canadian presence, haven’t a clue how their American counterparts will work.
Some of those making the statements, have a lot of creditability. Banks do make decisions on a whim, at times. Seen it with CIBC and the Royal a few times, so it just isn’t about banks not caring, it is more of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing. Also seen policies be different from the corporate angle, to the local branch.[/QUOTE]
I think it’s moreover a branch and manager issue than anything else. If you carry on a good relationship with your bank then I see no problem.
If you screw around with your bank then you’ll have problems…“credibility or no”. It’s nothing to do with “whim”, it’s do with business.
Maleflixx uses CIBC.
For my personal accounts, I prefer local credit unions. Credit unions are non-profit and their mission is to support and give back to their community members. Your local credit unions (normally) have a deal with all other local credit unions that allow you to use any credit union ATM without surcharges. Also, my credit union puts money back into my account if I am charged a surcharge by another banks ATM. My credit union never charges a fee for using ANY ATM. Banking fees such as stop-payment and interest rates for loans are almost always lower than any bank.
With that said, our businesses bank with Wachovia. Once we had tens of thousands of dollars taken fraudulenty from one of our bank accounts. Those funds were put back into our account the same day. Also, David and I are in the North East and Harlan is in the South East, its important to us that we chose a bank that any partner could walk into a nearby branch. Agreed some of their fees are high, but we find their business solutions to be top-notch.
it’s not a bunch of bull. silvercash and the hawgs programs were dropped by b of a for porn, and i know other smaller programs and webmasters as well. they were quite businesslike, some of them. i talked to one b of a manager who says he would term an account he knew was a porn account, and that b of a would back that up. i wouldn’t want to use a bank that would term me for admitting what legal business i was in.
[QUOTE=gumdrop;84025]You know, IMHO it’s a bunch of bull. People start making certain accusations with out substantial proof. If you have proper business dealings with ANY bank they don’t care…as long as it’s legal. That’s at least what my bank manager says.
Proper business dealings = done in a business-like manner[/QUOTE]
btw, a number of wells fargo branches around the country have apparently made porn friendly statements when asked what kind of business a prospective account holder was in.
Unless you plan on going into your local bank branch and tell her to look you up on your blog, I can’t imagine them terminating your account because you earn affiliate income from adult websites.
I use Chase. I agree - they have become very fee happy of late. Joe Blow’s suggestion of Mint.com is worth investigating. I saw the founder of Mint.com on a panel at South By Southwest Interactive last March and he was very sharp, very impressive.
i’ve had tellers who looked up a couple programs out of personal curiosity when the checks had odd business names. one program that happened to me with “raw like sushi”, which was actually written on the check. i know a couple webmasters who had the same experience.
[QUOTE=basschick;84078]it’s not a bunch of bull. silvercash and the hawgs programs were dropped by b of a for porn, and i know other smaller programs and webmasters as well. they were quite businesslike, some of them. i talked to one b of a manager who says he would term an account he knew was a porn account, and that b of a would back that up. i wouldn’t want to use a bank that would term me for admitting what legal business i was in.
btw, a number of wells fargo branches around the country have apparently made porn friendly statements when asked what kind of business a prospective account holder was in.[/QUOTE]
As I said it’s more over a bank manager issue the corporate policy. And if they, corporate found out that bank manager was making statements like that he’d be terminated.
[QUOTE=Joe Blow;84033]
Chase is running a TV commercial right now that you can get an iPhone App and take a pic of a check and deposit it via your phone. Chase also sells those little check readers like they have at Teller windows, so you can scan the MICR numbers and deposit checks from your desktop/laptop.[/QUOTE]
I’ve asked about this I think you said the same thing about B of A. Both times I got looked as if I’d tried to walk in and deposit a live octopus.