What size bank do you use?

[dixiegrrrrl]

Poll question: What size bank do you use?

[Wickerman]

1. Credit Unions for me

Nothing but for the last 25 years.

[jaxx]

4. Same here.

[LiberalEsto]

6. I switched to one last year

because people at DU encouraged me to do so. I'm glad I did.

[Wickerman]

9. Pay three or four times more for worse service?

No reason to be at a "too big to fail" bank. My credit union has virtually no fees and they know me by name when I come in. Its more like the way the US used to be. Customer service and value for your money.

[JohnWxy]

18. I believe in credit unions.

[bunkerbuster1]

2. Big bank customer here. Guilty as charged.

Weaning myself from the oh-so-conveeenient online banking is down on my priority list, but it's on the list, anyway.

[Wickerman]

10. Check out CU's in your area

Even in hicksville, MN we have online banking abilities in our Credit Unions. I haven't bought a stamp to pay a bill in years.

[bunkerbuster1]

11. I will do that, thanks.

[panader0]

3. Sad to admit: Chase

I will be switching to a credit union soon. Chase has done some bullshit to me. For example, I paid off a credit card last year, over 3K, and felt good untill two months later, I viewed my accounts on line and found that there has been a last interest payment they neglected to tell me about, and had attached a late payment fee on top of it. As a result, the interest rate on my other card skyrocketed to 27 percent. I felt the bank was to blame as I had clearly tried to pay the card off totally, and had not used it. They just told me tough shit, pay up.

[MNDemNY]

5. Piggy, it's about 8" tall, 14" long, 6" wide.

[yy4me]

7. I moved my meager assets from a much larger county wide

bank to a very small stockholder owned bank in my home town. I did the bankrate.com thing, I know the personnel at my new bank and I saw their published financial report. We have 2 stockholder banks in town that are used by many locals and both seem to be on fairly good footing. Put my small savings in a CD at 3%, and work out of my checkbook after the Social Security check comes. I will have an unemployment check coming for a while and that is helping with the heat for this old place.

Unemployment will run out by the time the heating season is over. At my age, competing for a job with dated skills is a case of wishful thinking. I just can't do it anymore.

I have to trust this bank, since I am alone and have to go by my gut feeling. My prior bank is building branches everywhere and in this economy, that is spreading yourself too thin in my opinion.

Just keeping my fingers crossed.

Gobama

[regnaD kciN]

8. Was with WaMu for sixteen years...

...switched to BECU (credit union) four days after Chase took over.

So far, no complaints. As a matter of fact, BECU handled a screw-up on my part at no charge that would have cost me $132-$176 in bank fees had I stayed with WaMu/Chase.

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. Here is why I did the poll....

http://solari.com/blog/?p=2060

C.A. Fitts is a primary source for common financial sense.
She commented on the fact we are part of the problem as long as we support the Big Bankers who have plundered our country.
Everybody here screams about Wal-Mart but not about banking at Wells Fargo or Chase or .....

for the record, I am credit Union and so are my adult children.

We refuse to load the guns that are turned against us.

ty all who are doing the poll.:hi:

[customerserviceguy]

13. You forgot "piggy", or is that in Other?

I use KeyBank, but only because I trust them from my experiences with them on the West Coast. I had a great credit union back there, but over here in NY, they all seem to be pretty lame. I just pulled all of my money out of a CU that I set up an account with a year ago, it seemed that their online system was always broken down. And it took me a lot of hassle to get that online account up and running in the first place, way more hassle than I would have put up with in a commercial bank.

I guess CU's are just not ready for prime time here in NY. Their locations and hours are insufficient, or they just rate too low on Bankrate.com for me to trust.

[dixiegrrrrl]

14. "Piggy", or Seally Deposit, is in "other"

Some people are not comfortable mentioning they have cash in the house, so I chose neutral
for "other".
Yes, CU s in some places can be inconvenient.

That said, I have rarely used a ATM, instead I used my debit at grocery stores for extra cash back.

[tosh]

15. I use both of the local community banks, as does our family-owned business.

Both are old (1911 and 1936), closely-held institutions and I personally know every director on their boards.

I also maintain a credit union account that I opened when I was a state employee.

[truebrit71]

16. Chase....well that's what it's named this week...

...since having the account it has been First National Bank of Chicago, Bank One and now Chase....it changes name/owners on average once every three and a half years..

[Warpy]

17. 2 mega banks, 1 brokerage and a small local bank

The two mega banks are Peter and Paul, Paul being the junk account I use for ATM purchases. George and Henry are the brokerage and small bank.

The latter is not doing well, unfortunately, but my funds are small and I'm only keeping the CDs there out of sentimentality. The other three are fine so far.