I dropped this bank like a hot potato
Written: Mar 11 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Huge bank with lots of branches and ATMs (convenient)
Cons: Terrible customer service; too many fees; small selection of account types; quality has gone way downhill
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| foster's Full Review: Firstar |
My very first savings account, opened when I was 12 years old, was at Firstar (back then it was First Wisconsin). I loved my bank and stayed with them for over 15 years... Then, over the last 5 years or so, Firstar merged with /bought out/ was bought out by several banks. And their service has gone down hill each time.
I had a checking account, savings account, and ATM card that were perfect for me... all of which were involuntarily switched to different types without me having any say in the matter. All my free services suddenly started to cost me money. My ATM card was automatically changed to a check cashing card without notifying us of the service agreement until we got the new card - and it had NO theft protection on it if anyone stole the card and used it for "plastic checks". So we called them the same day we got the card and we said we wanted our plain ATM card back. First, the "customer service" rep (I use that term loosely here) actually ARGUED with us about why we shouldn't switch back; then, we went for over a week with NO functioning ATM card because they cancelled both the new check card AND the old ATM card and didn't send us the new ATM card for several days. And this happened just hours before my husband had to go on a business trip - so he had to go out of town with no cash on hand (any business traveler will tell you that it is dangerous to walk around in a strange town without any cash - you never know if you will be able to get money any other way if you are not familiar with the town...)
We also signed up for electronic banking, which they advertised to us through the mail as free, and we called and spoke to another customer service rep to verify that it was a FREE service. Well, our next bank statement had a fee on it for electronic banking. We called another customer rep... "Oh, the SOFTWARE is free, not the service." Well gee, that's not free then, is it... so we cancelled the electronic banking immediately. But that's not the worst part. For SIX months that fee showed up on our statement... every month we called, every month a different customer service rep said they would take care of it. It wasn't until the 5th month that one customer service rep finally said "Gee, we really should get technical services involved with this" and put us on a three-way call with a guy in their computer tech department, who ultimately said they should have come to him in the first place to get our account fixed.
OK, maybe this is the way banking is done nowadays, with fees and computer glitches and no say in which account you get... but it wasn't always like that at Firstar, and I guess I just didn't want to stay around and watch a good thing falter. Besides, I found a bank where I don't have any of those problems now. So good riddance, Firstar. It was nice, but now it's over.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
foster
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Location: San Antonio, TX
Reviews written: 37
Trusted by: 21 members
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