Jim over at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity closed his Bank of America account after a teller forced him to fill out a deposit slip. Jim doesn’t care for deposit slips, calling them “a wasted branch on a tree we’d otherwise like to keep around,” and likes tellers to double-check his math. Even though Jim yielded and started to fill out a slip, the teller tapped a reserve of rudeness that inspired him to close his account.
So she pulled out a deposit slip and told me to fill out my name and address on the slip (useless!). Then she put a calculator in my face and told me to add up the checks. All of this was pretty terse and borderline rude but I was content to let it go. As I added up the checks and showed her the calculator, she proceeds to read out the numbers really loudly over and over again. Is there no sense of privacy? I can understand her reading them back softly, but she was speaking more than normal indoor voice.
Okay fine, whatever, at this point the interaction hadn’t gone great but it was hardly worth closing an account over. Then she looks at my balance and tried to sell me on a certificate of deposit. I politely declined. She persisted by saying I was losing money by putting my money in a regular checking account. She’s right, but I still politely declined. Then she proceeded to start talking to the customer waiting behind me! No good bye, no thank you have a nice day, nothing.
That, Bank of America, was the proverbial straw. Keep that lousy $6 you got for giving me an interest rate of 1.0%, which is essentially paying an annual fee anyway, and keep your other worthless products. We’re outta here.
Bank of America is like goatse. You hear the stories, but don’t really believe it will be that bad. How could anything be so repulsive?
And then you open an account and discover that it’s even worse than you thought. Sorry you had to learn the hard way.
Bank of America Is The Suck [Blueprint For Financial Prosperity]
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Another ex-teller here. When I was a teller, I was a recent college graduate, clean cut, and well spoken. However, on a daily basis I was treated like an illiterate jerk that was personally responsible for all the policies that customers did not like. I would say that I was screamed at by an angry customer on a weekly basis. And yes, after that treatment, you are expected to upsell – you job literally depends on it. I had a supervisor tell me that it was unacceptable to take no for an answer until they had refused 10 times. Ugh. It makes my stomach turn just thinking of how anxiety inducing that job is. So, yes, her attitude stunk, but knowing the job, I understand why.
IF B OF A IS READING THIS FAR DOWN:
I am looking for a loan to buy my first house. My credit union has the first shot, then maybe WaMu and Wells Fargo? BofA has been my bank since the mid-90s, I’ve had good and bad experiences with them. I still have a checking acct there, just for the ATM network. I drop a grand in every month and they have never overcharged me.
This is going to be the biggest purchase of my life! I want to deal with a bank I trust. I’ll give BofA a shot, but I wish they’d get some good press once in a while.
As far as the original poster’s problem? The teller was rude- long day? bad lunch? who knows. The OP should’ve totalled his checks. It’s just the smart thing to do. Better to use an ATM. The new ATMs at BofA actually scan the check and give you a receipt with the scan on it! Pretty good for evidentiary purposes in case of a screw-up.
@ehlaren: Deposit slips DO have another purpose. As I stated above, they go with the checks or cash-in tickets to balance out the credits to the debits by the proof operator. The proof operator works as a third party that encodes the bottom of the deposit slip as a credit, then encodes the bottom of the checks/cash-in tickets. It seems really difficult for everyone here that hasn’t worked at a bank to comprehend, but THERE IS A REASON FOR THE DEPOSIT SLIPS. I don’t understand what people think happens to your deposit once we get it and how they think we keep everything seperated without deposit slips. But now you know. And if a teller doesn’t make you fill one out, it’s because they don’t have any customers and are nice enough to go ahead and fill one out for you. But without the deposit slip, there is no deposit going through your account.
HAHA, Go to a different bank and you will get the same thing. Every bank I know of requires you to fill out a deposit slip. In every company anywhere you are always going to encounter someone who is rude. I think consumers really need to disassociate the person they are dealing with from the company they are dealing with.
I know Credit Unions are not the answer to all the banking woes of the world. However I have never used deposit slips for one of my Credit Union accounts (well except when I’m making a night deposit and that’s on the outside of the envelope they provide) and my wife told me the other day that the other Credit Union we have an account at is also doing away with requiring them.
So there must be some system in place that removes the need for the deposit slip for backup.
@KogeLiz: Why? Is there some real benefit for a legal citizen to have an account at BofA with no SSN? Maybe I am missing some brilliant financial move of which I should be taking advantage. Please enlighten me.
@Rectilinear Propagation: “No” sounds like refusing to me.
Ive had pretty good luck with BoA, my only minor gripe being that it takes ages to reach anyone at my local branch and they offer no form of Call me Back voicemail.
I think closing the account was pretty rash and stupid considering, seems like speaking to a manager or other means would have been a lot easier than moving bank accounts.
Big business is a game we all have to play, sometimes you get idiots, you just have to keep searching for good reps until you get one.
Just another reason why I left BOA a couple years ago. The branch manager was the reason they lost me as a customer
Deposit slips suck. Why do they even have check card scanners at the counter if they still make you fill out a stupid deposit slip???
I loathe BOA.
I have been a customer for 9 years. I used to make weekly deposits every Friday afternoon at the same branch. Every Friday they would try to sell me additional banking products and convince me that I should change my account from OR to WA (because their systems aren’t compatible). This would require me changing my account number which I didn’t want to do.
The final straw was when the manager told me “I was making life hard on myself”. I wrote a letter to the “Market Executive” (over inflated titles to accompany huge egos) but I heard nothing in response and was continually badgered when I went in there. I haven’t moved my accounts for the very reason that I won’t change to a WA account number – I don’t want to deal with changing all of my automatic withdrawals and deposits. Also I don’t believe other financial institutions are any better service wise.
To top it off, I used to work for this horrible corporation and they treat their employees even worse than their customers. Our department as a whole did not receive any raises, not even basic cost of living increases, for three years, despite the fact we were all given “exceptional” performance ratings.
We couldn’t order more than one Bic Ball point pen at a time but the CEO received a nice $5M bonus that year.
@Gstein: aggghhh… I can’t get the image out of my head now! Damn woot-off boards!
i had 3 BofA accounts when I was younger. (my mother made me do it) Once I got out of high school, and got a decent job, I would make my deposits via the ATM because, I really hate dealing with tellers. My weekly deposits at the time were $515.15, but, for some reason when I would check my account balance a few days later, the account would only reflect $51.51.
Like a moron, I dealt with this for six months. I got of work early, went to the branch, talked to a manager, and even showed her my check, stubs, and statements. After that conversation all they could say was, “Well, you can call and have the deposit corrected”. Needless to say, I flipped out, told them off, took my money and went to Wells Fargo. They’re not perfect, but at least they get all the basics right everytime.
I’m pretty shocked you chose to print this story instead of the one I sent you where Bank of America FINGERPRINTED ME.
Oh look, they were rude. How interesting.
FINGERPRINTING.
Due to the ecomony, my family is in a financial bind. I have consistently tried to work with Bank of America, instead I get harrasing phone calls, faxes to my work, calls to my boss, etc. MY tax dollars were given to BOA for a bail-out and they choose NOT to in-turn help they people who helped them.