Since I’ve spent so much time complaining about banks lately, I thought I’d highlight a bank that’s got it’s act together.
Premier West Bank is a bank that’s local to Oregon and Northern California. They’re actually based right here in Jackson County, Oregon, which makes them a local favorite.
A Real Life PremierWest Bank Customer Service Story
My mom banks at PremierWest, and recently she had a banking horror story that was eerily similar to what I’ve just gone through with Chase.
Her employer was in the midst of laying people off. Her job was on the line, but her manager decided to keep her. Unfortunately, the corporate offices didn’t get that memo.
One day my mom woke up, checked her bank balance, and there was a large amount of money deposited into her account from her employer. Her manager was not in the office, so my mom transferred the money to her savings account, so it wouldn’t get intermingled with her living expenses as she investigated.
When she talked to her manager, she discovered that the money was a severance package, mistakenly deposited into her account. The transaction would be reversed shortly, but my mom was assured she had time to transfer the money back to her checking account.
Unfortunately she was told wrong. Before the money was transferred back to her checking account, the severance payment was reversed. My mom had several transactions go through, and not enough funds to cover them. She incurred a total of $144 in overdraft fees.
She walked into our local PremierWest bank and politely asked to speak to a manager. The manager listened, understood, and credited back all the overdraft fees right away.
Later that week, my mom was contacted by her apartment manager about the rent check she had bounced due to the mess. The check had never been returned to the apartment manager. My mom wrote a different check, but was concerned that somehow the first check would be found and sent through also.
My mom headed back to the bank, and explained the situation. The branch manager stopped payment on the rent check, since nobody could find it, and even paid the stop payment fee.
Both times she was in the bank less than 5 minutes, before the problems were fixed.
The Bottom Line on PremierWest Bank
It’s refreshing to see a bank that can handle complicated situations quickly. It’s encouraging to see a bank that treats it’s customers like people. Instead of being a slave to the fee schedule, this bank chooses to look at individual circumstances before making a judgment call.
In my searching around for local banks, this one tops my list. The only thing that makes me hesitate is that Bankrate’s Safe & Sound Rating System only gives PremierWest two stars. As far as I could tell, that’s the same rating given to every locally-based bank around here, except the credit union. Our credit union only received one star. I have some thinking to do.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I totally agree about the difference when dealing with a local bank and one of the monster mega-banks. Our local bank was hit with a phishing scam where a bunch of text messages were sent out telling people their debit card had been deactivated and to call a phone number listed in the text message (area code & exchange were local so it looked OK). When my husband and I got this text message we knew instantly it was bogus since the bank didn’t even have our cell phones. But some people fell for it. When they called the phone # they were asked to enter their account number and PIN and their accounts were immediately wiped out. Well the bank was never at fault since the was a total scam but they covered the loses for the people that did get taken. Granted there were only about 30 or 40 people but our bank didn’t need to give them any of their money back. Once the problem was reported they were able to pin point the area where the fraudulent debit transactions were taking place and close down all transaction coming from that area. Anyway I don’t think Chase or any of the other monster mega-banks would have done anything for the people who fell for this scam.
Thanks for the bank listing link – very interesting!
Sounds like you have good options. I wonder about those bank rating systems. I think they are not a very good indicator, because they were rating banks that were on the cusp of failure as 3 and 4 and 5 star outfits. I think they caught up with them as they were being seized by the Fed, but still, I’m dubious of the utility of a rating system like that.
I think I’m also just dubious in general, since I’ve learned about how the same ratings agencies that rated shifty-mortgage-backed securities as safe investments got kickbacks from them. It’s a racket, I tell ya!
Hmm…my credit union isn’t even listed on their site! Bizarre.
You said that no local bank got more than 2 stars. Did you check South Valley Bank & Trust? They have $100 million in assets and got 4 stars. They are another great local bank that continues to add branches. Their customer service is excellent and some tellers even know be name.
PremierWest also does a great job. I have 2 friends that work for them.
Premier West is a very personable bank, as far as always having great treats and all…But I have to say that I have paid more over draft charges than ever since I have banked with you!Times are definately difficult for many, people have had to make huge changes in there lives, budgets priorites and decisions.Being a small business owner and getting paid as I work and my husband being un-employed incurring $564 dollars in ODF fees is devistating.I know that it is easy to say that it is my fault and I am unorganized and irresponsible, but life happens and there should be some limits as far as how much a bank customer pays whether I have been a customer for two months or ten years.Washington Mutual now Chase, at least used to have a HEART if your account was over drawn they gave you till the end of the business day to fix your mistakes before HAMMERING you with tons of OD charges…People are human and make mistakes life is busy and things fall apart if Premier West is so kind and customer oriented than find a better way to make money than sucking hundreds of dollars from your customers without delay!
There is a lesson to be learned with this issue. If you received money (deposit) that you didn’t authorize, don’t know where it came, that may be a payroll error or direct deposit error, Don’t Touch It. Call the bank/employer/whoever, ASAP, and let them to the investigation before you touch the funds. Leave it alone for a couple of days so that the right transactions can be done with the right accounts. I see this with direct deposit errors in payroll. I even tell employees Don’t Touch The Money, wait a couple of days. Do they, NO!, and it gets messed up and then they complain.
Most of us “in the office” in banking wish that we could just waive a magic wand and rebate the fees. It would make our jobs so much easier.
But if you unfortunately have to deal with a bigger bank and they can’t/don’t rebate your fees, please don’t take it out on the people in the branch, even the manager.
In my bank, Branch Managers CAN’T rebate fees. They will listen, they will understand, they will plead with their regional managers, but they can’t rebate them. Customers get angry and it makes our job harder.
I have no pity for people who just are too lazy to write down their transactions and they use more money than they have and get charged a fee (we have plenty of those). But one out of every 10 customers really does have a valid reason and I really wish I had an option to rebate fees.
Bottom line, those of us in branches in bigger banks are powerless. We hate the fees and want to help but we truly can’t. Either we don’t have the technology or our requests are constantly denied.
Just try to not direct your anger at anyone in the branch…we want to help and it’s not our fault that we can’t.
BEST BET in a mega bank, call the president of the bank. Write a letter to the president of the bank. It’s the only thing I’ve seen work.
I completely agree that one should always be polite in dealing with bankers. When I had an issue with Chase, it was obvious that my local bank wanted to help, but couldn’t.
It’s important to be polite when trying to come to a resolution. It’s not fair to get angry with those who don’t make the policy, and if you do get angry, you’re unlikely to get a good result, even if the person you’re talking to has the ability to change things.