Posted on 10/19/2010 7:10:33 AM PDT by MissTed
When Tim Kindrick went into his bank on September 23, he thought it would be business as usual to deposit a $2,100 insurance check he and his wife received for water damage. Kindrich ultimately got the check deposited, but when he complained about how it was handled, First Citizens froze his debit card and said it didn’t want his business.
“It kind of floored me and my wife, the way we were treated,” says Kindrick, 45, who’s retired from the Army.
He’d been banking with the Forest Lakes branch of First Citizens— motto: “We value relationships”— for about three years, had over $20,000 in his account and had deposited three or four similar checks already this summer with a teller who knew him, he says.
This time, a different teller said she couldn’t deposit the check because it was made out to both Kindrick and his wife Natalie, and the account was in his name only.
Natalie Kindrick had endorsed the check, but not with the special endorsement adding “make payable to Tim Kindrick” the bank wanted, he says. And when Tim Kindrick asked to see the policy, he says the bank manager told him she didn’t have time to look for it, and that this policy was to protect his wife.
The manager called Natalie to confirm her signature on the check, according to Kindrick, and then deposited it. “To me, the accusation is I forged her name and tried to steal the money,” he says.
Still peeved, Kindrick wanted to talk to a supervisor to see a copy of the endorsement policy, and says he was told someone would call him. That didn’t happen, says Kindrick, until five days later, when Jeremy Cox, the area operations manager, called to say that Kindrick could never deposit another third-party check in his First Citizens account.
“When I told him that I wanted to talk to someone higher than him about the decision, he told me, ‘No, the buck stops here,’” says Kindrick.
Kindrick decided he needed a new bank, and when he told Cox, he says the bank rep immediately froze his debit card and said he had 10 days to close his account. “It wasn’t a right to bank with them, it was a privilege,” Kindrick alleges Cox told him.
And on that particular decision, Cox was able to provide the policy: Page 34 of the “Deposit Account Agreement,” which states that the account can be closed at anytime “with or without cause.”
“I’m flabbergasted,” says Kindrick, “and shocked when I requested to talk to a supervisor, and was told no.”
Cox did not return a phone call from the Hook.
“Unfortunately I’m not going to be able to say anything because this speaks to a specific client matter,” says First Citizens spokesman Frank Smith.
In general, does Raleigh-based First Citizens, which has 359 branches in eight states and the District of Columbia, drop clients if they complain too much or the bank finds them annoying?
“We can’t comment,” says Smith. “It’s due to federal privacy law.”
“I can’t even write a check right now,” says Kindrick, who says he fears a check would bounce if it didn’t clear before the 10 days he was given to park his money elsewhere were up. And without the debit card that he estimates using about 50 times a month, Kindrick had to drive to the bank to get money until he opened a new account.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which regulates First Citizens, has seen complaints about banks jump from 6,255 in 2008 to 8,289 in 2009.
And while there’s nothing to prevent a bank from ditching depositors, rejected clients can complain to the feds. “If they send in a written complaint, the FDIC will investigate,” says FDIC spokesman Greg Hernandez.
Meanwhile, Kindrick is still trying to figure out how asking to see a written policy led to First Citizens dumping him. Says Kindrick, “I feel very much like I was retaliated against.”
The banks have effectively become another branch of the Feds..in your neighborhood...trying to snoop your pocketbook.
Should be no surprise they achieve the same sort of customer service as the Post Office today.
Exactly.
But, I would bet there is another side of this story.
As a small business owner myself, I reserve the right to walk away from customers who act like jerks... and I do.
I have walked out of their restaurants leaving freezers warm and meat rotting because the owner was “demanding” special pricing, or acting like a total asshat. I have been threatened with lawsuit if I don’t fix this or fix that, RIGHT NOW.
People don’t understand, unless you are under contract with my company, I have no obligation to do whatever you want. I have walked into homes, and had irate jerks call me names, or just treat me badly. I just pick up my tools, write a bill for the time I was there, and leave, and I tell the guys who work for me to do the same thing.
The bank I work with is small, and privately owned, and I’m sure the owner of that bank has had jerk off customers as well. I’m not sure this is the case here, but again, as a business owner, I am always leery of the crying customer complaint, about how he was mistreated. In my own personnel experience, it is usually the customer that is acting like an ass. We are in business to make money, so we do our best to treat our customers nicely, with a smile, give them fair service, bend over backwards so we get repeat business. The same cannot be said for some customers who think you are obligated to sit there and take their tirades because they have had a bad day.
No thanks.
But I still would like to hear the bankers side of the story.
The man’s request to see the policy is a valid issue.
The retaliation is also a valid issue.
Sorry you don’t see the connection to customer service in a service industry.
OK, let me chime in here.
There is probably more to the story, i.e., the part where the guy acted like a belligerent jerkoff. Secondly it’s VERY common not to accept third-party checks without doing them a specific way, due to liability...in other words, if a check is made out to Jane and John Doe, and it’s put in John’s account only, Jane can easily claim she never signed the check or intended for it to be deposited into John’s sole account. Although one could argue that it could be proven to be her signature in court, the bank isn’t going to let itself be dragged through that.
As far as “letting him see the policy” - these types of things are generally buried in policy documents and aren’t something that you can easily just grab from a file folder. Or, they’re verbal policies.
The guy was probably a jerk, and yeah, the bank employees might also not have handled it as well as they could have.
Oh, and “It wasn’t a right to bank with them, it was a privilege,” - that’s true anywhere.
Very true.
In my experience though, those types of checks are almost always “AND” or unspecified (just lists both names) which is interpereted as “and” in most cases.
It’s all about liability. For 17 bucks it’s a bit nuts, but if your wife came and claimed that you cashed HER check and that wasn’t her intent (since it was made out to her and not you), the bank technically was right.
However, most banks would be willing to let it slide for a few bucks like that, since the worst that would probably happen is they’d have to eat $17.
The name fits and you obviously know nothing about customer service.
We have the same policy where I work but I can assure you we would explain the reasoning differently. I found early on in my career that it is best to explain why & give examples. The biggest complainers are the “don’t you know who I am?” types when you ask to see I.d.’s. I even had the f-bomb thrown on me for asking I.d. for notorizing. I suspect there’s more to the story. I know how loud & obnoxious some customers can get.
Turning away the check was one thing...but if they closed his entire relationship there had to be a reason.
He was probably a major a-hole in the branch, in front of other clients, and they felt that cutting him loose was better than the problems he could cause by raising a ruckus in the branch.
I’m willing to bet it wasn’t the first time he acted like a d*ck.
Actually, in Chase's eyes, you're a lousy customer because they don't get to collect interest off of you, and the card transaction fees really don't amount to all that much (especially if you're in any kind of rewards program) after overhead is accounted for.
Lots of credit card issuers try to annoy "good" customers like you into leaving because you aren't profitable.
I’ve had a great experience so far with Bank of America.
I charge damn near everything and rack up crazy points in the process which I cash out.
I’ve yet to pay any fees or interest.
People think banks are making tons of money off of them. That’s not really true. Here’s the proof.
When are you going to stand up to stupidity?
Remember its THEIR money you insolent peasant....
Standing up is fine, but when a client’s behavior seems to reach a point where they’re no longer profitable and disruptive to others, you gotta cut him loose.
Exactly right! They’re in business to make money not cater to your convenience I get cut loose all the time far lack of activity or for paying off the balance every month. I use credit cards for convenience only. i take advantage of the 0% interest periods...as soon as I get charged interest I cancel them and get another. I get offers several times a week and have been doing this for years.
All we have here is this guy’s side of the story. If the bank is willing to lose a customer, they have that right, and there are probably good reasons that they are not talking about. I am particularly unmoved about the alleged damage this is causing to this guy. He could have a new account opened and his money moved in an hour. Big deal.
a duck??????? LOL
I was with BOA for thirty years and cut them loose about two years ago....too damn big. They do have a great online banking program though.
I’ve had great experience with Chase. They called us and offered to refinance out mortgage at a lower rate, at no cost to us. Which they did. They did it because they knew we could go somewhere else for a lower rate, and because under TARP they had to do a certain amount of modifications, and they wanted some of their good, low-risk customers to get the benefit of that.
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