BritGuyTN

I've considered suing my personal banker and reporting him to the securities commission, but its the individial rather than the company

I try and step away from all of that and just look at the products offered, i know getting to the end goal can be challenging sometime, but trying to get something they offer is a whole lot better than not being able to get something since its not offered int he first place

is the banking system here crap compared to the uk? yes

are BoA less crap than a lot of the other banks? probably

would i get a car loan from BoA - no

do BoA offer a very good secured card program? Yes

Do bank of america protect you very well in the event of fraudulent activity - in my experience yes

if you are a prime borrower you can get very good deals, and from a day to day perspective their on-line banking facility is great

BritGuyTN

i'm interested, can you extrapolate 'who would hit quotas for screwing people up the most, '

ugacrew

Most people that have had issues with large banks such as BoA normally use their local credit union for things such as loans and credit cards. I would probably have two accounts open. BoA is great because of the amount of locations so it would a good idea for checking accounts. You can bank all over the nation without worry. I'd use your credit union for things that don't require regular maintenance. I have mine for loans. Also the benefit of them is that they tend to charge a lower interest rate on all of their products. Look into your area and see if you are eligible to open an account at one. You might be eligible purely on your Zip code.

Bob

Employees on the customer service, it's part of the incentive program. They get points for denying credit limit changes, not lowering interest rates, for adding on excessive protection that doesn't actually help the user etc. There's a good inch thick employers book, most of which is a bit dodgy.

BritGuyTN

i tend to like the benefits of boa/citi/amex for credit cards, they have a lot more value for what i do

car loans however, credit unions are wicked, my last 3 car loans have all been with patelco in california

BritGuyTN

i would have thought that would be a given and i don't doubt it in the least. i guess its called revenue optimisation

i think they probably all have similar

i think in general customer service in most industries is going down the pan, although when i first came here, waiting on an oik from att wireless would literally take 45 minutes now its pretty damn quick (same with the USCIS bizzarely enough)

Elvira

Whilst I accept that some people have had bad experiences with BoA and anyone's mileage may vary, we have been with BoA for nearly 10 years and always had excellent service. The key to that service was to 'hook up' with a senior person at our local branch who basically took care of everything and smoothed the few wrinkles we encountered along the way.

So I would say that actually visiting the local branches of any banks you may considering, and observing how people are treated, as well as talking to friends about their experiences with their banks, is a good way to approach the "which bank?" conundrum.

As far as secured cards are concerned, we started off with a BoA card. After about 6 months they offered us an unsecured card with a sizable limit, which was then increased every few months. Admittedly it took around a month to get the secured amount back, but I doubt that this would have been much different with any other provider.

NB: One of the best sites for financial information is the Motley Fool, which also has lots of useful discussion boards for all kinds of topics (not just financial):

www.fool.com

(or www.fool.co.uk for British stuff)

www.bankrate.com is also useful for comparing interest rates, bank accounts, credit cards etc.

Bob

Aye, it is a bit poo...I thought MBNA were pretty bad with it, because there were people that got incentive bonuses for denying employee benefits, but BoA took it to a new level Didn't help that part of the merger was to keep US based customer service which MBNA had 100%, but then BoA closed a lot of the centres down as soon as they merger got the go ahead and moved even more work to India and the like.

YorkshirePudding

Here's how I did it:

Got a Wells Fargo (Wells Fargo are a good bank and CC company) secured CC with $300 down. Put something on it every month, but make sure you pay off the balance in full every month too. (Also try and not have a balance more than half of your limit).

Kept paying that off for 6 months or so, then applied for a Target card. Got a $500 limit and did the same with that as regards paying off the balance every month.

Wells Fargo and Target soon made my cards regular, unsecured CC's so then I applied for a car loan and got that no problem. Then a mortgage was next, and I got a pretty good rate.

I also heard that you should have different kinds of credit in your file? ie some kind of revolving credit, like store financing on jewellry or electronics and stuff...personally, I don't know the difference.

All this took about 2 and a half years, and I now have a rating of about 760...I think.

Dan725

Slightly OT, but I thought I register another vote in the defence of Capital One.

Universally slated they are, but if you travel a lot overseas, the fact that they eat all fees and the exchange rate you get is the live rate at the time which means that for that purpose they are very hard to beat.

Although I'd been here a while piggy backing off the wifes credit, when I got my Capital One card I had no trouble at all. Initially got a $7k limit - 6 months later, without asking they upped it to $12k - so they sometimes do give limit increases.

Tracym

Both myself and a friend have Capital One cards, in addition to Amex and a misc.

I've had no trouble with them - generous credit limit, and good service.

Just Jenney

You have been lucky with Capital One, then. I worked in one of their call centers for three years, and I can honestly say that I would never, EVER, get a credit card with Capital One.

One of the reasons that I didn't get bigger incentive bonuses was because, in Capital One's opinion, I tended to try to help the customer too much. Working to help fix customers' problems often meant staying on the phone longer than 240 seconds (the maximum call time goal). It takes time to get all the details about the problem from the customer, to read through the notes on that person's account (if anyone actually left notes from previous calls, that is), to look up information on how to solve the problem, and to explain why the problem happened and how it can (or can't) be fixed.

The longer the call, the lower your incentive rating gets. Time spent doing this meant little time focused on "value-based selling" -- fewer sales means fewer incentive points. Time spent writing thorough account notes about the call -- so when the customer inevitably calls back about the problem again, the next person knows what the hell is going on -- means more time off the phone and more points docked from your incentive rating.

Capital One is all about getting the customer off the phone as soon as possible -- but not before convincing them to buy something they don't need. They rarely care if someone had extenuating circumstances that caused their payment to be late -- even if you personally believe that waiving the late fee is the right thing to do from a customer service standpoint, they literally prevent you from waiving the fee. It's ridiculous. This just makes customers mad and want to complain, but Capital One just wants you to dump the call as soon as possible, which usually requires you to be a heartless and unsympathetic robot. I finally left the company after being on disability for 5 months for work-related stress and anxiety attacks. (Yes, the anxiety continued even when I wasn't there!)

Capital One is not set up to promote or encourage good customer service. I'm not saying it's unique in that respect, just that based on my experience working there, every time I come across someone who says they find Capital One has good customer service, I'm genuinely surprised.

~ Jenney

Tracym

Interesting. I never had a late fee - but I had a problem with a merchant, and Capital One was lovely helping me. I'm sure we were on the phone at least 15 minutes - with two different people, and them doing a little research in the middle.

Recently, I discovered I couldn't read the security code on the back. Again, they were most helpful. Put me on with some supervisor, and the sent a new card express (arrived in two days) and waived the replacement fee since it wasn't my fault (he offered I didn't have to ask).

Couldn't ask for better service really.

Perhaps they were dinged for it, and are trying to improve?

SpoogleDrummer

I'm another Capital One user I'm afraid. My bank didn't offer secured Credit cards so I just went and applied for an unsecured one wit Capital One online, it got approved instantly and I've had it about a month. Granted the limit is only $300 but if it gets me started then I'm happy. My wife has had Capital One for a few years, despite not having a job and her credit score is pretty good and it's all down to her credit cards as she hasn't bought anything else to herlp her rating.

Just Jenney

Not ALL Capital One reps are horrible. Without sounding full of myself, I was the type of rep that you described: helpful, patient, polite, etc. There are good reps at Capital One, no doubt about it. But the culture that Capital One has created makes those people few and far between, because they are penalized for having those qualities. I mean, really -- reps who achieved low ACT (average call times) by basically sitting on their hands, being curt and rude and doing f-all to help solve the customers' problems were rewarded big time financially (ie, $1000s extra each month), while other reps (like me) who took an extra few minutes to listen to the customer and try to actually help them were reprimanded. I can't tell you how many times I was told, "Don't ask them any questions or ask them to tell you what the problem is; try to figure it out from the account and if you can't fix it quickly, tell them they'll need to call back."

If it sounds like I'm bitter because I didn't get bigger bonus checks, that's not it. I'm bitter because I felt like I could really make a difference -- however small -- at that job, but my hands were routinely tied and I was written up for being "too helpful." And what pisses me off is the fact that consumers out there, including me, deserve so much better, especially when it concerns their hard-earned money.

~ Jenney