I'm still deeply annoyed with this, because the website is so bad now. It's so counter intuitive. I can't stand that it doesn't list what the pending transactions were. The old website could do that, why did they change it? It drives me up a goddamn wall. Also, why do they have to have that go down EVERY NIGHT until 6am? I only get to check my account at night.

I'm very unimpressed. Commerce was pretty great but now I'm considering changing banks.

Hmmm... just noticed since their "upgrade" alert e-mails don't work anymore, even though they show as active on the site.

@Eldritch:
I know the feeling. And now that, according to a previous article on the consumerist, that they are going to reorder withdrawals to maximize any fees, I am considering switching also.

@Eldritch:
I'm not waiting to see if they have more of the same issues on Nov 1st. I was with Commerce for nearly a decade. TD has not earned my business. Based on their performance this past week, I just opened a new checking account with PNC.

Did anyone else notice that TD wasn't savvy enough (in my opinion) to retain the commerceonline.com domain? (which now appears to be registered to an entity in Korea).

Was not impressed with how TD Bank handled the systems merge and the resulting issues. Obviously, it was not executed very well and I'd go as far as to speculate that they didn't plan all this out very well either.

And all this for what? As an ex-Commerce Bank customer, there is no perceived upgrade on our end. It's either the same serviceable interface or an outright downgrade.

It was a lucky coincidence that I maintained a large balance lately (since I was particularly lazy this month and neglected to transfer funds), I had no incoming direct deposit around this time and none of that occasional expense surge - I wouldn't want to think what would've happened if I also had to deal with charges unfairly levied against me.

Generally, I'd like to think that major problems don't happen often, but at the rare times they do, how an institution handles them shows a lot. At one point, I was seriously considering making my Commerce Bank / TD Bank checking account my primary account. Now my decision is set on that - time to undo some of the things I shifted over...

@azntg: While I'm at it, I want to add that it doesn't help that:

1) TD Bank has quietly cut back on the business hours of ex-Commerce Bank locations here in NYC - especially branches outside the borough of Manhattan (maybe they're adopting Mayor Bloomberg's notion of city limits...)

2) TD Bank crippled many full function ATMs to cash dispensers. So, if the same branch has reduced hours, but still has many customers coming in at off hours, it translates for longer wait times for access to the appropriate ATM (in all the branches I've seen so far, TD has left only one full function ATM).

3) And of course, higher fees for everything they decided to touch on. At least they were smart enough to be selective - ostensibly to avoid criticism that they're raising fees across the board.

I can only wonder if that's the Canadian notion of "building a better bank." I hope not!

@Eldritch: Wait, they shut down their online system every night? Why even have an online system?

Companies that truly care about customers don't sell or merge. Period. Except for consumerist.

Just signed up for a HSBC Direct Savings account. What I neglected to realize is that all the money I had in my TD Bank Savings account was earning 0.1% interest. My new HSBC account earns 1.35%.

@DaBull: I checked out ING, and they're offering 1.30%. Either way, both ING and HSBC offer 130x higher returns than TD.

I've been looking at other banks for my checking account as well, but have yet to find one that offers "free" checking without absurd hidden fees. I also want to make sure I'm going with a reputable bank. The reason I chose HSBC for my new savings is because they're profitable and less likely to fold.

@Dondegroovily: What about a company that is about to go out of business?

I could easily understand that a local chain might sell to a larger chain if the only option was to go out of business, especially if they thought the larger chain would keep their stores open and serving the customers.

i have and LOVE my ING accounts, but i needed a brick and mortar bank in chase of paper checks so i tried td bank.

but after having the bank opening from hell, they made me return to the branch FOUR times because when they opened my account they didnt get the right paperwork, misspelled my simple first name and not so simple last name and refused to just mail me the correct paper work.

the last straw was when i was went to the bank, at their request, and due to traffic arrived at 12.56pm at a branch that closed at 1pm (saturnday). and as i walking up some lady inside locked the door (even though she was have needed to be blind not to see me coming up to the door). pressed my iphone against the glass to show the time she came running back to open the door, but not to let me to me they were closed, i told her that i didnt want to be there but that i got a call for TD Bank ASKING ME to be there, and all i was trying to was complete my opening of a checking/saving account.

she said they were closed and to come back another day. at the point my time read 1.00pm.

i went home, transfered the money out the account and called to close my account. to which they demanded i go in to the branch again.

so 3 weeks later when i was in NYC i walk past one (by that point i had promised myself never to go out of my way for td bank), i closed my account.

thats the tdbank i know. thats why this does not surprise me and makes we wonder what do other people see in tdbank.

@DaBull: Emigrant Direct is also offering 1.3% on interest. I like their GUI a bit better than ING Direct (where I also have an account)

@Dondegroovily: Your post is complete nonsense. A merger or buyout is only okay for a website that you frequent?

There are plenty of reasons for corporate mergers and acquisitions, many of which you seemingly don't understand. It may very well be a necessity to continue operations. Welcome to Capitalist America.

I'll believe it when I go to update Quicken on Tuesday morning. In the meantime, I am moving to a Credit Union. I am tired of having a checking account in a small friendly bank and then watching it get eaten up by a larger bank.

I think TD displayed a general disdain for its customers during this entire debacle.

@DaBull: I believe Schwab has a free, no-min, interest checking account that might be worth looking into. It's geared more towards investors, but there's no reason one can't use it as a basic checking account. I can't speak to its ease of use, but I think a few folks around here have an account there.

@supercereal: The consumerist thing was kinda a joke. But a company that is truly customer-focused doesn't merge or sell because they don't want a TD to happen to their customers. When they do, their very picky about who they sell to - thus Consumerist joining Consumer Reports.

Being customer focused means realizing it's sometimes better for your customers for you to go out of business than to be sold to some megacorp that doesn't care. No company that sells to BofA cares about their customers.

Hmmm, you would think they would have learned their lesson from their merger with Canada Trust here in Canada. Although I'll admit it went relatively smoothly, all my accounts were royally screwed up with phantom service charges and incorrect plants. I upped and left after that fiasco but unfortunatly with Canada's Citizen's Bank shutting down I've come crawling back. TD's the least evil of the Big 5 up here.

@Dondegroovily:
They shut it down to update records, my bank does this as well. If you are able to access it while the records are updating you will typically get incorrect or $0 balances, and see transactions missing.

@KittensRCute!: Even ING will let you mail in checks, though scanning checks like USAA is really how it should be done

In the middle of this whole mess, my ATM card died. But all of their card machines are down so I can't get a new one. I tried three different branches until finally the third branch admitted it is a company wide problem. Yet there are no signs posted anywhere that the machines are down. They just let everyone stand in line until it's their turn to hear the bad news. Luckily we happened to overhear an employee telling someone else.

Great gravy. I've belonged to more than a few banks in my life and I've never had this much go so wrong at once.

@fruvous: Here in Canada with TD Canada Trust you can go in and negotiate better interest rates and fee packages and they seem to be quite flexible especially the more business you place with them.

The whole TD Bank U.S. fiasco is beginning to sound like a massive Fail, though.

And I could say it was raining poodles, but that doesn't make it true. ;) Nice going TD.

@DaBull: Brick and mortar savings accounts are for suckers.

eh, not quite... still not reflecting a payment to my credit card bill from last week. The credit card co. shows it as paid, but TD bank has no record of the debit online. Since it is in my favor I will ignore it for now. Let's see how it plays out.

I sure do miss Commerce Bank. We opened our accounts there in 1999 and we've had no problems with them. An entire decade with no problems and then.... BOOM! TD Bank. Our money is accounted for, BUT... where the hell do we go from here?

PNC kinda sucks, but there are branches EVERYWHERE. Credit unions are okay, I suppose, but when traveling I wouldn't be able to find a branch. What's an middle-of-the-road bank that won't dick me over TOO much?! I expect a little dickin' around... it IS a bank afterall. But the less the better.

I sure do miss Commerce Bank.

@Maglet:

Agreed about Commerce. They were great. The first day that my bank turned into TD Bank, I made a deposit and the teller neglected to enter the last zero, making my deposit hundreds instead of thousands. Sure, it would have gotten corrected eventually (had I not noticed it on the spot), but the lack of attention was scary. The same thing has actually happened a few more times.

The only other bank that is everywhere in NYC is Chase, and I hear such horror stories about them.

@webtech: Not sure about the website, but when they bought Commerce, they actually wanted to keep the name Commerce. They weren't able to because TD operated in areas that Commerce hadn't, and apparently some local bank had a trademark on the name commerce in one of these areas, TD tried buying the right, but the guy wouldn't budge, apparently being the one banker in the country who doesn't care about money.

@gothamguy: I'll also board the "I miss Commerce Bank" train too.

TD Bank employees may say that very little have changed for ex-Commerce customers, but the soul and spirit has long gone - you can really see this with the front line employees.

It's a real pity that Vernon Hill II turned out to be a crook. If there's ANYTHING to be said to his credit, it's that he knew how to create from scratch and successfully run a relatively customer friendly bank.

BTW, Chase is nothing to write home about unless you happen to be really flush with cash.

If you don't have much cash, if you don't expect much perks and don't mind the fees too much (OR) if you're willing to jump through hoops to avoid those fees, Chase is perfectly fine.

I have a sister who works for TD (she was on the Commerce side of the deal). Basically, the website integration was supposed to be a seamless chane on the 24th, but little problem after little problem caused the system to be down at the end of the month. And lets be honest, in today's world there really isn't a "good time" for the site to go down.

Your tellers are probably the same, perhaps they are new since they had to do a lot of hiring, but it isn't a case of TD workers forcing old Commerce workers out of a job.

Most changes would be noticeable to TD customers, not Commerce, as even though TD bought Commerce, it was TD polcies that changed. TD wasn't open like Commerce, they are now. My sister is in HR, and one of the biggest complaints she gets is from the old TD staff wondering why they are the ones who need to adjust when they bought Commerce out.

This was aggravating, definately, but sadly, its not even close to the worse bank experience I had. If I found a better bank, I'd switch, but I'd still rather have TD thank BofA, which is my other local choice right now.

Am I the only person living a nightmare with TD? I have not had access to my account online or by phone since LAST Saturday. I had to go to the branch to check on things. This seems totally unacceptable to me. Everyone at the branch looks exhausted, saying that this transition has been a nightmare for them too. The assistant manager I met with said he has been working 20 hour days.
Why is there no MSM coverage? This seems huge.

@Ben Popken: I realized this the hard way, after earning 0.1% interest on my money for several years at TD Bank.

@azntg: Complain. I once complained to TD about my fees and they switched me to a different lower-fee account and - without my prompting - refunded the fees I had paid.

@DaBull: We never save enough to even consider the benefit of a higher interest rate :-(

This has also become a nightmare for me. Not only did my deposits show up late, I would call before EVERY transaction to make sure that I was clear to spend the $16.00, $2.00, and $7.74 I spent during their big mess. Every time, I received a balance that informed me I had plenty of money. I've been financially conservative because I'm unemployed and waiting for an unemployment check. But last I knew, I still had $13.00 in the bank to continue my wait for the unemployment check. Imagine how STUNNED I was when today I received a "Notice of insufficient funds" for ALL THREE of those transactions - all of which has the incorrect date on it. The total in overdraft fees? $210.00!!! It appears that they have begun reordering transactions - the $105.00 fee for the first "overdraft" appears a day BEFORE the first transaction that would take me under $0.00 according to the new daily balance that appears on the website.

To top it all off, I've been on hold for 20 minutes waiting for customer service. No answer. Not acceptable. I'm shopping for a new bank.

Got a call from my wife today. Bank card was declined at the doctor's office. I went online to see what's what and my paycheck *STILL* has not posted, we're a couple thousand in arrears now adding in the over $500 in overdraft fees they're charging.

UNACCEPTABLE.

I'm on hold with TD Bank right now to get this mess sorted out.

They can't do anything right.

@carpe-nyc: Update - today, an old $3.02 charge from who-knows-when appeared... and ANOTHER $35.00 overdraft fee, taking me to $245.00 in overdraft fees on $28.76 in activity, all of which occurred more than a week before it showed up in the account and all of which was made while my account showed a positive balance more than sufficient to cover each expense.

As MauriceReeves says - UNACCEPTABLE!