Yesterday, I had to go through an "interview" to close an account

Yes, as treasurer of my Home Owners Association, with the signed approval of the rest of the board of directors I had decided to move our checking account to a different bank where there are no fees involved. So, I went to the bank and had to be interviewed as to why we were moving our account. The bank manager left the room several times and came back with more questions each time. I was there for 45 minutes and they finally closed the account and gave us a check for our balance. I am no stranger at this bank as I have been doing my personal banking there for a dozen years. That will change today.

Maybe your interviewer got a $500,000 bonus for doing such a good interview?

-90% jimmy

I'd have made a seen and demanded cash. I would have screamed until I got it. (I would have got it).

I'd have made a scene.

And that is when they decided to give it up. I had decided to be on my best behavior before entering the bank and did pretty well for 3/4 of an hour and then blew up. Told them I would be back today to close my personal and business checking accounts along with my very meager saving account. I'm ready to go do that now and if they give me any trouble I'll raise holy hell.

I'll pull out as well.

Either they were stalling because they didn't have your money...or ...?

were they trying to convince you to stay with them? ...were they asking you personal financial questions?

something smells wrong here, I wonder if the bank is is trouble at all? is it a big one or a small one?

very strange, and unsettling...I BET you won't be banking with them anymore, neither would I !!!

it was a stall..

I closed my only two credit card accounts by phone last week. Not a single late payment in over a decade and they jacked my rate to 19%..

They asked me a couple of questions... I really feel kinda sorry for the poor girl on the phone, I tried to be really civil but some anger crept out.

But most companies want to know why a customer leaves, so they might change whatever it was to keep other customers. I know I certainly try to get people to tell me why.

wouldn't have anything at all to do with those customers going elsewhere.

Really...and we wonder how they were able to mismanage their businesses so bad they had to be bailed out. Hmmm...the first thing you want to do when you're about to run out of money is make sure to put aside several million for bonuses, because that's just good business sense, right? :eyes:

I will not pay the leeches another cent I don't have to.

They still get a transaction fee from my debit card, but I use it as sparingly as possible.

Why do you think they have so many ads now that using csh or checks is so passe, uncool, and embarassing to do...

They want a cashless society where they get a cut of every single transaction made.

And where they get to collect info on every single thing you buy and consume, to sell and use for whatever they please.

They started by asking why we wanted to change and then started insisting that I give them "another chance". Then they started with the personal questions like "How do we know your board members signatures are authentic since your papers aren't notarized." "Who are you going to use as your bank now?" Questions that were none of their business.

I have never had anything of value, much less a bank acct f any real value...i have had more in NEGATIVE balances than positive ones!
but if i was ever asked weird questions like that, i would have their guts for garters, so to speak.

i saw another thread that someone had issues with their bank doing some dancing on a transaction they had always done...

wondering how much of our banking is truly insolvent?
...perhaps the best savings strategy now involves a coffee can and a shovel!

Google it for more info if you want it as I don't have any links at the ready.

No joke. I had about a balance of about a quarter. I wrote them certified letters stating for them to do it. I had been to the branch initially, then resorted to mail. They just kept spending more on a stamp to send me a statement every month than the balance I had. Every couple of years they would give me some kind of charge and make it overdrawn. I would call or write something certified and tell them yet again to close it, but they would refund the charge but not close it. Finally last year, after eight years of this, I wrote a letter to the president of the bank in whatever state that was and asked what he could do to assist me in this. That finally did the trick. I offered to send my boxes of statements to him but he didn't take me up on the offer. Have no idea how much money they lost on me sending me statements but wasn't my fault.

And hand the money over to the state.

but apparently they refunded me something and that's where the quarter came in. Most trouble some quarter I ever had.

Unfortunately there is a great deal of theft by board members of HOAs. Florida comes to mind.

Also, if you are in a college town the various groups and organizations experience a lot of disappearing funds by officers.

Therefore the banks are always trying to tighten up procedures for not for profit groups because the banks will get blamed for the theft by officers of the organization.

You should praise them, not condemn them. BTW - I don't work for a bank. I manage HOAs.

When they all know me by name and I have been the treasurer of our HOA for 9 years and have never been off by one red cent? I guess from my post you cannot acertain the tone of their questions. They made me feel like I was being interviewed by the cops. Sorry, no praise for them for the way they handled me.

It also seems like you think of this as "your" account.

My account? Never insinuated any such thing. The money belongs to our HOA and I am the guardian of it and have been so, responsibly, for many years. Part of it IS mine but I am well aware that most of it belongs to others and it is my duty to be a good steward of their funds.

All of those funds belong to the corporation, of which you are just one officer.

and thus, every homeowner in that HOA owns a piece of that $11,000.

I know. I'm treasurer of my HOA, have served as president, and have served as long as the homeowners have had control of the HOA.

Corporations are owned.

The HOA Corporation is wholly owned by the membership.

So your declation that I'm wrong with nothing to back it up is just so much bullshit.

Better yet - try putting your "share" of the funds on a personal financial statement.

What you do is get enough people to vote in an election to put a majority on the board who will return the funds to the members.

It's pretty simple. It'd be pretty damned stupid to do it, but it is certainly doable.

The fact of the matter is, every HOA in the country is just one election of the board away from a complete and utter mess.

I have been managing HOAs for 27 years - have never seen that happen.

Theft of corporate funds by board members - that's pretty common. Especially in associations that don't have audits or professional management.

But you are right - every HOA is one disastrous election away from some crazy decision making. In fact, I just got off the phone with the treasurer of one of my Associations because the new President is telling me to pay an invoice to a contractor she hired and his work is shoddy to the point of needing to be done over.

The President is out of control and all of the other board members are afraid of her. She told me if I don't pay this invoice it is willful non-performance of my contract.

at least here in Illinois.

A president alone cannot make those decisions. It requires a majority vote of the board in an open meeting to allocate funding for anything.

But a bully president can always get enough votes on a board. That's what our first president was like, until an anonymous mailing was sent to every address in the HOA right before an election.

Cost $148 to take care of that mess, but the timing was right to do it.

They are secretly planning a recall petition of three board members.

It was much easier to take 'em on in an election.

Of course, that president claimed to be president for the next five years and no elections could take place until I proved she was wrong straight out of the declaration. That president tried to shut down even having an election and refused to have any open meetings.

they used it for marketing, to keep the account -not protect it.

if they were doing what you said, that would be one thing, but they just dithered in an attempt to save some bucks for themselves.

And you need their permission to remove it???

When I was in HS and wanted the car for the evening, my parents were not that hard on me!

...but he had the absolute right to remove it.

Whoooooooosh.....

That has to be established. And the bank can not take the word of one person - no matter how well they know him/her.

:eyes:

You go in with a check and you are a signatory ~~ you have the fucking right to remove the money, OK? End of discussion. PERIOD. The bank is holding money which does NOT belong to them. You establish your identity and you are on the account, that is ALL that it takes. Duh...

This is NOT rocket science ~~ well, maybe to you...

You have constructed a false set of facts.

But you certainly have the attitude of one.

When you close an account the cashier check is made out to the HOA not an individual.

When my MIL was entering a nursing home due to Alzheimer's, I had to call & cancel her Penney's credit card. The idiot on the other end refused to cancel the card because she "needed to speak to the cardholder." I explained the situation, and asked to speak to her supervisor, but of course this was a call center overseas, so no dice! So I called back, pretended to be my MIL and cancelled the card, but not till being subjected to "We'll gladly restore your account if you change your mind." I haven't set foot in a Penney's since.

only my father was dead. I finally shouted "what part of dead don't you understand? Can't you think outside your stupid script?" This was the power company. The problems I had with his HOA (of which he was treasurer for years), well, let's just say I now hate HOA's with the power of a million nuclear reactors and will never join one even if they held the last drop of water in the state.

then when I finally was able to contact them, sent me on a run around with their attorney. Then they gave me a hard time about getting a dumpster placed in the driveway, threatening me with a huge fine about "ruining the driveway". They would not allow us to use their paper/recycling dumpster. The guardhouse gave our real estate agent all kinds of trouble allowing prospective buyers in to see the condo (the Development owned the HOA and they were also selling new units) (this after a long conversation with them regarding the hospice nurses). When our buyer put in an offer there was all kinds of question on whether they would put him on the agenda the month of closing to approve him. They also tried to fine me for a key I never had. They threatened to levy other fines regarding a boat that my father and his girlfriend "owned" together (which I signed over to her and told her to arrange it's removal from the storage yard). I told them flatly "It's not my fathers nor our boat, if you want it gone call the owner and threaten her with impounding--not my responsibility." I think the girlfriend ran into some trouble trying to recover it which caused a delay.



I don't know how my father afforded the fees, they were so high. Then they had the nerve to charge me for a directory/rule book for the new owner.

Unfortunately it sounds like the association was still in the "Declarant Period". In other words, the developer/builder/declarant was still in charge and had not successfully sold-up their development.

I have several trustee letters and POAs on file for various unit owners as I am always glad when a responsible person steps forward to take over.

Just yesterday I went searching for a caretaker/relative for an elderly unit owner who keeps sending in double and triple payment checks each month. I usually mail them back with a note - hoping that a child or someone will spot them. But I decided to take it a step further. I wanted to talk to someone.

Its a delicate dance (and really not my job or any of my business) but I found a daughter. She was very grateful that I let her know that mother had reached a point that she was no longer acting responsibly with her money. I was the first person to contact the daughter but she assumes that many other checks have been written to places other than the HOA that should not have been sent.

Its not the first time I have ventured beyond my boundaries and won't be the last. I do it because both of my parents have/had Alzheimer's and I understand that they won't ask for help because of pride or lack of self-awareness.

Sorry about what happened to you - it gives all HOAs a bad name.

in a nursing home, completely incompetent mentally and physically. My mom has legal power of attorney over his affairs. You wouldn't believe the shit a lot of businesses and creditors where he had accounts give her, they just refuse to understand that HE IS NOT COMPETENT, that they CANNOT speak to him, even after being shown the original power of attorney and physician statements. They simply cannot think beyond their scripts. It drives mom absolutely batshit nuts, like she doesn't already have enough to deal with. It's as if they think she's keeping him prisoner in a fucking closet or something.

Well, similar with questions. She wanted to take out $5,000 and they wanted to know why! I mean, 5K isn't that large an amount and it's none of their effing business besides! Oh, and I found out this week that my bank was seized by the feds! No email, I just learned of it when looking at the newspaper online!:rofl: :eyes: And I tried to access my online account and they won't let me. Think it's time to close that account...

we could beg, borrow, or steal to keep them in existence, with no controls or expectations. The 3 largest banks now control over 2/3 of all U.S. banking and they have nothing to fear.

Unless tens of millions of people start moving their money into local institutions, they will keep squeezing harder until they own us in name as well as in practice.

:scared:

"too big to fail" and have been massively subsidized in order to swallow up any conceivable competition.

when all the banks across Asia, even in Korea, failed due to Wall Street fucking with their monetary system? They had a "the fire sale of the century" with Wall Street firms (like fucking Goldman Sachs) picking up banks for pennies. It was done unto us last year.

http://www.bankrate.com you can get a current rating for your bank.

So glad I saw this post. I hadn't checked my banks rating for a few months and just saw it's down to one star.
I'm going in tomorrow to close my accounts and move to a more highly rated bank.