Banking

[ravenword.livejournal.com]

Hello Davis!

I graduated from college (yesterday!), have a job lined up, and tonight will be the first night I spend in my new apartment. Exciting times! I'm moving to the Davis area from Waltham, so I'm not yet very familiar with my new home. My question is, where do you do your banking? I use Bank of America right now, and I know there's a BoA right in Davis Sq. 'cause I've used their ATM, but I'm ignorant of the other options. I'm thinking of switching banks, and proximity of ATMs/banks to my home and work is a big part of the decision. Any thoughts? (I'll be living just outside Teele Sq.)

Thanks in advance.

Comments

[nowalmart.livejournal.com]

This is somewhat strange, since I tend to be very anti-huge corporation (I do not go by "nowalmart" for nothing), but I will step in and defend BoA for a second.

With a huge customer base comes an assured increase in total number of complaints. Suppose every single bank had a dissatisfaction rate of .1%. Wainwright Bank might have 10,000 customers, which would mean that 10 people are pissed off at them for something. Suppose BoA has 10 million customers. That makes for 10,000 pissed off customers. They would have as many unsatisfied customers as Wainwright HAS customers.

[Note for this example that I completely made the numbers up.]

Working for a company that makes a very popular product, I can assure you that the loudest people (and frequently the only people that say something at all) are the people that feel they have been slighted by the company, regardless of where the fault actually lies.

That said...

Go with a smaller bank like Wainwright. If something goes wrong you are more likely to be able to get ahold of someone who can fix the problem (or explain why the bank does that it did) than trying to get ahold of someone with ability in a huge bank like BoA.

Note that I am a proud member of NetBank (http://www.netbank.com/) since I dislike almost every bank. To avoid most ATM fees I know of the few banks in the Somerville area that do not charge ATM fees, and I always get cash back on debit transactions at grocery stores and the like.

[ron_newman]

OK, but where does NetBank invest the money that you deposit?

We know that Wainwright Bank invests it in local loans; it's common to see their name on signs in front of local developments.