I have used several banks over the years, and some have come to be much better than others. The best bank was one I hated at first, and some of the ones I really liked at first were ones I would never do business with again!
1. ING Direct. I opened my
ING account several years ago after getting and advertisement where if I opened a savings account with them with $25, I'd get $25. So I did that. What was confusing was I didn't know how to access my account. I did not know it at the time, but if you do not have any activity on your savings account, you would only get a statement quarterly. I tried to access my account online, but because I did not know my Customer ID # (I thought I would just need my account #) I was unable to. Eventually, when I finally got a statement, I mailed them a letter saying to close my account and send me a check for my money, which they did.
About a year later I got another advertisement from them and sent in to open another account. I was told that because I had already done the promotion before (I guess it's once per person for ever) I couldn't do it again, but I opened an account anyway. This time I opened both an Orange Checking and Savings accounts, and was able to easily access it online. For probably the last year
ING has been the bank account I use most. The interest rate is much higher than any other bank I've used - even though it has been reduced over the past year (from almost 4% to 1.39%) it's still significantly higher than any of my other bank accounts. The only drawback is that you cannot use paper checks, but I rarely use those anyways.
You can create multiple savings accounts, which I find very useful. For example, I pay my car insurance every six months, so every month I put in 1/6 of the bill, and when the bill comes due I have it all ready. You can easily open a new savings account with just a couple clicks - no paperwork to sign. You can also close it just as easy. You can also open Orange
CD's just as easy.
You also get interest on the checking account, which is an added bonus. I've seen other banks offer interest-bearing checking accounts, but the rates are very low and they usually have a minimum of $5,000 or more. There is no minimum for ING. The current interest rate is .25%. Before all the interest rates started falling it was at .50%. Interestingly, even at .25% that rate is still much higher than the interest rate on savings I've had at any other bank (except the local credit union).
They've always run a promotion - if I refer you as a customer, and you open an account with $250, you'll get $25 and I'll get $10. E-mail me if interested.
2. Citizens Bank. I've really enjoyed this bank. The people in my local location are very friendly and helpful. I only have a checking account with them, but I have enrolled in their
GreenSense Cash program where I get 10 cents for every electronic transaction I make (limited to $10 a month). So I have my
ING bank setup to every day withdraw $1 and deposit $1 into that account. :-) I considered opening a savings account here, but they offer a whopping .10%. Citizens also does free electronic bill pay. They also offer several interest-bearing accounts, but even the cheapest one requires a $1,000 minimum (or else a $10 monthly fee). The interest rate was .10%. Their best service (Circle Gold) requires a $20,000 balance over all of your accounts, and the interest rate is increased to .15%. ING's .25% with no fees/minimums is much better.
The main reason I have this account is for rebates. I get a ton of free-after-rebate stuff and this bank has never given me a problem cashing them (see
Woodforest below). It's not uncommon for me to come with more than $500 in 20+ checks, and they don't give me any problem.
3. Woodforest National Bank. One of these opened up in my local
Wal-mart and I opened up an account with them. I was going to switch from Citizens to here because Citizens is located in a grocery story that is a little out of the way, whereas
Wal-mart I go to at least once a week anyway. The main reason I use a local bank is to drop off rebate checks.
The first couple of times I deposited rebate checks I had to wait while the girl entered them one by one into the computer (at Citizens all they do is check and make sure my math was correct on the slip), and with 10+ checks this takes about 5 minutes (and defeats the whole purpose of going here because it takes just longer than if I went
to Citizens). I was willing to put up with this at first - the bank had just opened, so maybe they just didn't know what they were doing. But one day I came in at 5pm to deposit about $300 in checks. Keep in mind that I have deposited about $2,000 of rebate checks so far, and none of them have ever come back bad or anything. I put them down on the counter and the teller (she was a manager as well) looked them over and told me she'd have to call the banks to verify that the funds where available. Again, keep in mind that I was depositing these - I wasn't getting any cash back. Since it was after 5pm the banks were closed. She told me that she would not be able to deposit them and that I'd have to come back the next day in the morning! The whole purpose of me going here was to make it more
convenient than going out of my way to Citizens. I almost told her to just close my account, but I remembered that I had a pending electronic payment, plus I knew that if I said much, I'd probably be yelling. So after the payment cleared I simply wrote the main office a letter and closed my account. I would never bank there again.
4. Chase. I opened a savings account here with a promotion (get $125 if you get direct deposit). I got my bonus a few days after my direct deposit. There was one condition though - you need to make 6 transactions a month with the debit card or else you would get hit with a $6 service charge. This is not a problem. But what I did find out this month is that they don't go by a calendar month - their month goes from the 15
th of the month to the 15
th of the next month. So I ended up getting a service charge for the month
of August even though the month is not over yet. I have complained to them but have not gotten a response yet.
They also charge a $3 fee to transfer money to another bank account (whereas
ING will do it for free). There is a 6-month period that I have to keep the account open or loose the bonus, but after that is over I will be closing the account. Why would you want a bank account that doesn't give you anything for using it except the potential for lots of fees?
5. Bank of America. I have twice tried to open a savings and checking account with Bank of America to take advantage of their Keep the Change program. Under this program, if you use your debit card they will round the transaction up to the nearest $1, and put the difference into your savings account. So if you spent $1.54, it would show up as $2 on your checking, and 44 cents would appear in your savings. They would match it 100% for the first 3 months (I think up to $300) and then 5% thereafter, and every year you'd get that deposited in your account.
The first time I opened up an account, I used a credit card and did $200. The $200 never showed up in my Bank of America account. I waited 2 months, and nothing. I called them and the lady I spoke with said she had no record of it. I called the credit card company and they reversed the charge. I closed my account with Bank of America and when I closed it they sent me a check for $200! But what was funny is that it never showed up on a statement. So I ended up
with $200 from that!
I tried just recently to do it again. I opened it with $100 from another credit card. A few days later I
received an e-mail from them stating that I needed to re-enter my information. The e-mail did not look like anything from Bank of America - it looked very much like the spam I get supposedly from
PayPal that tells me to click here and
enter my password. Hence I did not click on it. I never heard back from them, nor did I get anything in the mail from them until about 3 months later I got a letter saying I did not qualify for the promotion because there were no funds in my account. No money was every
transferred my the credit card I used.
So I guess I will not open another account with Bank of America - it never seems to work.
I also have an account at my local credit union. Years ago that was the only bank I used, but they didn't offer online account access or bill pay, and so I opened an account with Citizens. They now offer both. I have originally kept my account there the past several years because I was planning on getting my mortgage through them, but I am not. I am planning (hoping) to close on my house soon, and so I did transfer most of my savings from
ING to them so that it is easier to access (otherwise I'd have a 3-day wait while I
transferred it), as now I am buying some things that I can't just put on my cards (there will be a post on cash-back credit card soon). The interest rate is 1%, which is not bad at all. It's a little lower than
ING, but for the
convenience for the house that's
ok with me. After I close on the house I will probably just put the bare minimum in the account ($25) and leave it (I won't close it because perhaps it will come in useful again).