Does Anyone Really like Their Banks?

My husband and I have had accounts at many places over the recent years, and while our current primary relationship is with ViewPoint Bank, it isn't the best customer service in the world. Actually, you are far better off to not have to deal with customer service at all. However, they have the highest interest rate around that I have found for a regular checking account. It's not guaranteed for any period of time, but we've had this particular style account for 4 months and it hasn't dropped below 4%. There's no minimum either and no other fees. The requirements are as follows:
1. must have direct deposit or use their online bill pay service (which is free with this account)
2. must elect online statements.
3. must use your Visa Debit card 15 times a month. (This one is weird, I know.) If you have autodrafts set up on bills and you use the debit card, those count too.

You get free checks, and they don't charge you to use other people's ATM's I believe. There's no service charge and they pay the highest interest (currently 4%) on everything up to $50k. Over $50k the interest rate is tiered. It's a regular checking account without limited withdrawals or anything else like that so with no minimum balance to earn interest, it's pretty easy to use once you get your account set up properly.

Like I said, unless you have to deal with Customer Service, it's a good account to have. And I will say that they've never not fixed a problem, I just don't like having a problem to deal with in the first place. :)

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We really like USAA. There are no physical locations; it's all online. You will be charged a fee at the ATM but it is rebated every month My favorite thing is deposit at home. You can scan your checks to their website and deposit them from your home.

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Bank of America. Been with them 15 years and very happy overall. Very convenient. I once had my debit card number stolen and someone charged $2K on it. I called and BOFA stopped payment immediately and I didn't even have to fill out any forms.

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I love Bank Of America! We have been with them for 18 years. The fees are usually waived if you have a small savings account and use their atms. We have had our ID stolen-actually our checking account numbers and they were the ones that called me! They have a lot of ATMS all over the US. We have used free ATMs From California to Florida-which alwys seem to be convenient to where we are traveling. Very professional and I love their online services.

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We use Frost and love them. The customer service is great, the fees reasonable, and they reimburse for other ATM charges. There are locations in Mansfield, S. Arlington, and Ft. Worth that I know of. I have been with them for 20 years I guess ? I haven't had any problems.

Hi C., Yep, I'm very happy with my bank. I used to use Gateway always a problem with balances.I left them a few yrs. back, and started fresh with the New bank in my area, Bank of America( on Cartwright/Bruton RD @ Beltline RD. Mesquite.(this location has the photo area, for your personal Check card with picture) They are friendly, honest, prompt to serve, and you don't have to use a deposit slip when you go there. Love that part. Their drive up ATM's you can deposit a ck, or cash into money slot and see it on screen, and get a printed receipt with your name on it.I have a SD box and the entry into the chamber is a hand print to buzz you in, privacy. (I wear a ring ,they say a different ring will keep me out) Atm's used to be free in all Shamrock stations. Don't know now, as they were taken over by Valero. don't use them , sorry. Plus the Main Bank Of Amer.down town,near courthouse, has the entrance for the underground mall. Lots of neat places to eat,closed on weekends, open during banking times.
Oh and I also use online banking , bill pay, and also can get it on my cell phone.( mobile banking, with all same features) If you need to consult with them for any reason, you can do so online and get an answer , and alert of email from bank on my phone or email.They dont chg. fees if you have auto deposit, and a small savings account. I use their keep the change for my savings. If I use debit card anywhere and its say, 10.08 for purchase, $0.92 goes to savings. Easier for me to balance my ck. book. I'd deduct $11.00 .
Sorry for rambling on, hope this helps you, I like my bank.
BF :-)

I have been very happy with Capital One.

We love wells fargo bank, we tried two others in the past but wells fargo seems to be the best, we've kept them now for 12years!!!!!

Wells Fargo is great. I love their bill pay and online banking services.

Been happy with WaMu now Chase for years.....my mortgage is with Wells Fargo and they have been fine.........

I love Wells Fargo. Easy online banking. Wonderful customers service. Lots of locations. They are now joined with Wachovia so you can use their ATM's with no fee and once when we forgot to make a deposit, we had 7 bounced checks and Wells fargo forgave the NSF fees since we had never had that happen before. Bank of America was never so gracious. They hit us with fees for NSF funds even though they had a deposit. They withdrew the checks first and when the account was depleted, they hit us with fee's and then added the deposit. How dirty was that?

I like Wells Fargo. I've been with them for over 6 years and have always received great customer service and help, along with the other items you mentioned.

C.,

I bank with Wells Fargo. I have been with them 10 years. I even started to work for them back in December which only last a few months as working in a bank on the sales side was just not for me.

There is always a way to have something free with them. I have the second highest checking (They have 5 in Texas) The one I like is the complete Advantage you get almost everything free, checks etc just ask them about the requirements.

Wells fargo has been around for over 150 years so they are doing something right as well as they are the original online banking. So it is def very easy!!!! And with the Wachovia you can view balance or withdraw from their ATMs for no fee, but you can not go in the bank or make dep yet that should be made available towards the end of the year or next year.

A lot also don't know wells fargo has everything: Car ins, life ins, auto loans, the best Identity Theft protection etc.. IT is better to have all your stuff in the same place vs giving out all your info to other ppl.

HTH

E.

We've done busines with our personal and business account with Bank of America over 20 yrs.

I realize they are not the most popular with a lot of people but we like them. I've read a lot of negative things about them but we have only had a positive banking experience. We know the people at our local bank, have business relationships with them.

We never pay any fees for anything unless we happen to be stuck somewhere and use an ATM that is not a BOA ATM. That RARELY occurs. We have free checks for business and checking as well as free checking with the accounts. There are no NSF fees, etc to deal with if you keep the money there. Our accounts are fee free because we do have one of the premier accounts they offer.

We have business, checking and savings accounts with them and you can get some decent rates when you do some combo planning with accounts. I do all of my banking online and rarely even go to the bank at all.

Good luck.

I don't know if there's an Alliance Bank where you are, but that's what we've used for the past 6 years & love it. Never had a problem. They even reimburse you for ATM fees if you use your card at an ATM that is not theirs.

I love ours. We are at Chase bank.

I happen to use Bank of America and love their online services including Bill Pay! They seem to have many ATM machines that are very updated technologically.

I did like ours just okay (Chase) but now I LOVE them (Texans Credit Union). We switched to Texans in Feb after 20 years (yup, 20 years) with Chase. Texans offers a "HIGH RATE CHECKING Account with a 4.25% INTEREST RATE on your whole balance up to $25,000!

It requires nothing more than 1 direct deposit of any amount per month (and your employer can split your check among several, FYI) and 15 debit card purchases a month. So we set up several bills to auto pay on our debit/atm card and only end up having to make 5 purchases a month. Which we MORE than do anyhow. There is no minimum balance AT ALL. And no fee. We even got $150 for opening a new account with them. Their location was not convenient (Lewisville), but they have "sister" branch banks that were a little closer (Coppell where my Mother lives and I am at all the time anyhow), and I only go a few times a month to them anyhow to make hard deposits. So big deal. Since Feb, we have earned over $350 in interest, compared to $14 over seven years with Chase!!!

(That is with a balance that fluctuated from $2500 to $16,000 and back down, and everywhere in between, for reference.)

Plus, they don't use deposit slips, so less paper wasted there, and I did get free checks printed, not that I write a lot of paper checks.

Hope you consider them, take care!
Good luck!

We've had trouble with Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

However, we love DATCU. We've been with them for over five years now. They've got great clubs and savings accounts for kids, too. My kids love taking their pennies on Fridays to get popcorn and stickers. Plus they get other events, like a free swim day at the Waterworks park in Denton soon.

I currently bank with American National & have been mostly satisfied. I felt though that more than anything I should warn you about Bank of America. I had problems with them quite a bit during the 10 years that I used them. If you intend to keep a large sum of money ALL THE TIME in your account, then you will probably be fine, but if not just beware that they will charge fee's every chance they get. For instance, I had trouble with them holding my direct deposits & running charges through first (charges that would have gone in the next day AFTER my direct deposits were made) which would cause me in some cases to overdraft which would cause 'FEES'. They would simply choose to post some things before others so that they could collect on fees. They also allowed a satalite company to withdraw over $600 from our checking account without notifying us. We had set up with a local satalite company to provide wireless internet service at our home, but when they came out to do the install, they could not make it work due to tree's on & around our home, so we immedietely cancelled our agreement with them. Our original agreement was that they would do a automatic withdraw for $80/month from our checking account. When they failed to be able to provide the service, we cancelled. They turned around & took a lump sum out of our account & was allowed to do so by Bank of America without any notification to us until our account became overdrawn. Lessons learned... we don't allow automatic withdraws any more & we certainly dumped Bank of America. That was the final straw for us. Bank of America may seem like a perfect choice. They do have wonderful online banking & bill pay, but if you do choose to bank there beware... they are not a bank that is going to look out for you & your money honestly. They are in the business of making as much money off of you as they can.

We love Guaranty Bank. It has that small home town feeling. All the employees are friendly and know you.

Hi C. -

We have been with Capital One for 7 years and we also have an account with Wells Fargo. I like these 2 banks because you can basically do everything online includung opening the accounts you need. I rarely have to go inside the branch to conduct business. One thing that I love about Capital One is the Bill Pay Online. i also lik ethe fact that they reissue your MC debit card after a certain period of time to protect you from fraud. Have not had any problems with receiving my direct deposit on time and no off line issues either. Also Wells Fargo has what they call pay day advance which allows you to borrow up to $500 for a small fee until your next payday just for being an account holder with direct deposit which is awesome for emergency purposes.

I use Compass Bank and have had no problems.

I prefer the local banks rather than the megga chains. We bank at Legacy Texas Bank and have had our account with them when they were originally Plano Bank and Trust 15 years ago. They have many offices around in McKinney, Plano, Allen, Frisco, and on out to Fort Worth and Weatherford. They are personable and the tellers know me and greet me by my name. I tried the national banking years ago, and felt like just a number with little to no personal and kind service. If there was a problem, they really didn't care. In our business, we usually have large check deposits, and because I have a relationship with the branch manager, our deposits are never put on hold at Legacy Texas Bank. Deposits were constantly being put on hold with the National bank, and usually they would let me know of this after the transaction via mail and the hold would be for up to five days. I highly recommend Legacy Texas Bank that also offers a variety of financial services. Here is their site: https://www.legacytexasbank.com/

I've used Bank of America for nearly 20 years and have been very pleased. Their online banking is one of the best I've seen. I've used their banks and ATMs all over the country and they have lots of locations locally.

The only real downside is the interest they give you on your savings-it's pretty puny, but right now that's probably similar at other banks as well.

In looking for the best bank for you, a lot will depend on what kind of balances you keep. What we have done is set up our account with the minimum requried for an Advantage account. We pay no fees, the checks are free and we even have a second free checking account.

We took the majority of our savings and moved it to ING Direct, an internet bank. It is part of ING, a NYSE listed company. It pays one of the highest rates out there, but even that has dropped in recent months.

I would recomment looking at www.bankrate.com for information on banks. You can click on "compare rates", enter your zip code and you can get info on minimum balances, rates and fees for banks in your area.

My husband and I really like Wells Fargo. I used to bank with Compass, and I had so many problems with them. When I married my husband 3 years ago, he was already with Wells Fargo so I switched to them. I have not had any problems nor has he.

we've used merrill lynch for years. it has everything that you are looking for - online banking, lots of atms, low fees, etc.

Where do you live? we bank at Datcu and American National Bank. Am Nat is on 1171 across from almost across from Parker Square. I really like them both!

I love my bank, been with them for 29 years. They are a small bank but branching out. I don't know what you call lots of atms, but the atms are where I need them. American Bank of Texas, Frisco, Prosper, Bonham, McKinney, and else where.

I really love Guaranty Bank. I'm not sure about ATM fees and locations as I don't use them but you can get overdraft protection for pretty cheap and I've never had an issue with other odd charges with them like I did with Bank of America. Their locations are not as prevalent as some of the major banks but their service is excellent and their loan rates fair and they are always looking for ways to improve their service but not the fluff. If I was not going to recommend companies (Bank of America, CitiBank, Washington Mutual (which I think went under), and Capital One I'd avoid at all cost. I find that Credit Unions are awesome as they are non-profit, but you have to find out what the requirements are. (There are one's for specific types of people military, teachers, etc). Otherwise FDIC protected small banks are usually good to look at.

Who do you bank with? When I moved here last year from the UK it was a huge shock and adjustment at how behind the banking industry is with regards to technology but also the charges!!! I opened up a basic account with Chase bank so I don't pay any fees as long as there is a positive balance and I love the fact that there are ATMs just about every corner and no charge if you use the Chase ATM. I also love how I can deposit a cheque at the ATM and get a receipt with an actual copy of the cheque which can also be viewed online once processed.

I don't have experience with other banks here but haven't had any problems with Chase.

Good luck with finding the right bank!

I like Fort Worth Community Credit Union.

My husband and I have used many different banks and credit unions in the years that we've been married and have finally settled on Wachovia. They are great, haven't had any problems and are very very nice at any location i've visited.

Hi C.!

My husband works for Wells Fargo, so of course I will shamelessly plug them as the BEST bank! :) :)

I did want to let you know something helpful about banks in general. Most people want the basic "Free" checking account. Those accounts are usually the ones that end up charging for the "extras" so in reality they are not free. What people don't realize is that if they sign up for the fancier accounts (a fancier account has more things like online features, bill pay, direct deposit, savings acct. etc.), then they end up getting all the extras they want for free. The fancier accounts cost you nothing to setup, and then you get the bells and whistles for free as well. The reasoning on the bank's part for doing this is that you are more likely to remain a long term customer if you have several things with them and are pleased with their service.

Hope this helps, and of course I vote for Wells Fargo! On the factual side, it is the strongest financially of any of the nationwide banks. They have weathered the economic struggles very well. I hope you are pleased where ever you choose to bank!

God's Grace to you,

Lisa :)

Hi C.,

I cannot say enough about USAA. Excellent customer service, truly, and online options galore. There are no USAA ATMs; however, USAA sends you a check to reimburse you for any fees paid at other machines. They are awesome!

K.

We hate Compass they are very out dated and the service was always slow. We love our credit union, you ought to check into one such as Advancial or City credit union. Small and people know you there and they have everything you could need that a big bank would have. Good Luck.

G. M.

We have used Wells Fargo for 12 years and have never had any issues. They are great!

Hi C.,

I'm not sure where you live but we bank with Legacy Texas. They are privately owned so it just feels different than the big banks. They have locations across the DFW area and I think they are great with their customer service. Good luck!

Hi C.,

I LOVE my bank and will probably never change...I have been with Delta Community Credit Union (formerly Delta Employees Credit Union)for ten years now; https://www.deltacommunitycu.com/index.asp. Anyone can join. There are no fees whatsoever for general account usage!! In fact, they pay you to be a member with dividends not just on savings accounts, but also with your checking account. They do have a local branch in Southlake, but there are also many share branches you can use in the area with out penalty. My husband has actually never been into our bank. They also have online check deposits...not just with paychecks, but actual checks written out to you from others. Let's say it is 9:00 PM on a Sunday night and I go online to deposit a $1000 check, all I do is type in the check number and amount and a deposit slip is generated and the $1000 I just deposited is INSTANTLY available to use, all I have to do is mail the check to the credit union within 10 days. Once it is received they will send you an email to let you know.

Also, for every purchase you make with your check card you receive two points, which you can use to get cash back or gift cards from lots of different vendors. So in other words you get paid back for using your own money (similar to credit cards, without the debt).

They are excellent against fraud protection!! I had my check card number stolen once and my husband two times (later we discovered local merchants copying our numbers). Delta notified us immediately of the unusual activity and put holds on the purchases, we never had to pay a dime.

Best of luck with your decision!!

I love Wood Forest bank! They are in most Wal Marts and have great hours - even Sat and Sun hours. At the location I frequent, they know my name and know I'm a Realtor so they even promote me to others. The wait is never more than a couple of minutes, but usually there is no wait whatsoever.
The mega banks are great...until you have an issue with them.
Wood Forest even removed overdraft fees when I went in (after they called to let me know) and deposited a check. Now that is customer service!
I'm a small-town girl and love shopping and using services where people know me. Wood Forest wins my Bank of the Year Award!

T. "Ta-Dah" Camp
www.dfwhomesrealty.com
www.tadahmom.com
www.terricamp.com

We use Chase and really like them. With our account we dont pay any fees and dont get charged for any ATM withdrawls that are not with Chase. We also get points everytime we use our cards and dicounts on rates for martgages and loans...very happy.

Well, I don't like my bank either so I would say don't use First Convenience Bank because whenever I use my atm card at a gas station, I get charged an extra dollar! And also at other places sometimes. It's ridiculous! But good luck finding a bank!

Independent Bank in McKinney is great! Locally owned by two brothers who do things the right way. If you go to the branch on Craig drive in McKinney make sure you tell them that The F. Team sent you.
S. F.
F. Team Realtors
RE/MAX Four Corners
###-###-####

With all the trouble banks are having lately, I'd try
DATCU Credit Union. They have been in business for over 70 years and are financially sound.

Chase Bank! Been with them over 10 years. Lots of ATMS and rewards for using your debit card.

Strongly dislike Bank of America, Wells Fargo even more so. I've been with Woodforest since the beginning of 2006 and have not ONE complaint, not ONE.

Do not know where you are, First Financial Bank offers everything your looking for. Good Luck.

GUARANTY BANK hands down. friendly people, uncomplicated bank rules, fair bookkeeping procedures I cannot recommend them highly enough.

I don't know where you live, but we use Point Bank in Denton and LOVE them! The online banking shows pending transactions before they actually subtract from your account, the people are very friendly, and we have no fees. If you're in the Denton area, I highly recommend them! Good luck with your search. :)

I am happier than ever to bank at a Credit Union. If you live in Denton or Wise County, I highly recommend that you give DATCU a try---for too many reasons to list!

I'm a big fan of Bank of America - they have all that and are located across the country, so when we need to hit an ATM in another state, we find one easily so we don't get hit w/those ridiculous fees. I've been w/them for over 10 years and have been happy. Also, their online system is amazing. My company uses Chase, and I would not use them as my personal account after having to deal w/them for the business. BOA also has this great portfolio feature online - it automatically tracks all my purchases and categorizes them so that I can create a budget and compare that budget to my acutal purchases - LOVE this feature and not only is it totally free, it's simple to use. BIG fan of the BOA.

Hi C.,
I love my bank! FROST BANK. Before I switched I was with Chase. Fees and customer service were not the best. One time I was over drawn by one penny-yes one penny, and that evening after midnight my husbands auto deposit from his job went through, just as it had done for the past year, yet they still charged me $35.00. Frost is a Texas bank and you feel more like it's a family operation. When I first opened my account I had many times where I really goofed. I was never charged any fees, and my personal banker was watching my account and on several occassions call me to check to see if I was able to make a deposit and not get a fee. He now has moved up to a different department but everyone there is extremely nice and helpful. I have since opened up 2 accounts for my sixteen year old and now my husband uses this bank as well for his auto deposit from his job. I just can't say enough about how my experiences at Frost are always positive. Hope you'll have the same!! With this being a Texas bank there aren't as many locations as some others but I now know where the locations are that suit my needs and it works great for me! Take care, S.