I opened my first bank account when I was 16 years old. I’d just gotten my first job at the local video store – remember those? I went with my mom to the bank on the corner, where she had accounts and a personal banker, showed them my shiny (also new) driver’s license, and opened my first checking and savings account. My banker showed me how to write a check and how to fill out a deposit slip for those paychecks because direct deposit wasn’t a widespread concept yet. It was an exciting day. It was a big deal.
Ten years later, I still had the same checking and savings accounts at the same bank, though it had been bought by a bigger bank and had changed names. I stopped in the branch with my brand-new marriage certificate and a ring on my finger to change the legal name on my account and add my husband as a joint account holder. It was the same bank on the same corner, but with no familiar faces anymore. It wasn’t as personal as it once was, but they were friendly and helpful.
Twenty-five years later, we still had the same account, but the level of service I once experienced was gone. The branch on the corner had long ago closed, as the bank had transformed and been enveloped by bigger banks. In fact, it had recently merged with another huge bank, making it one of the top 10 largest banks in the country. We’d gotten emails and letters about the merger, with the promise of better service, better features, better banking. Even before that, we’d become frustrated with the lack of personal service, and we didn’t have high hopes after the merger. We were just a number to this banking megalith. A dollar sign followed by some digits and decimals.
Still, even when I thought about changing banks, it seemed such a hassle. My husband and I had three teenage kids and set up accounts for each of them at the bank in recent years, with us as joint signers. I was also now a small business owner and had a business checking and savings account at the same bank, with merchant services connected. Lastly, my husband managed his elderly mother’s finances, so we had moved her accounts to that bank for convenience. In total, we had 12 accounts at this bank. I was utterly underwhelmed with their app, their features, and their service. Don’t even get me started on the insulting interest rate – a small fraction of a percent - on their savings accounts. “But it will be such a hassle to change banks,” I lamented.
On an average Monday morning in February, I sat down to do my weekly budgeting and bill payments, as I did every Monday. I am a methodical and fastidious manager of our finances, both personal and business. I pay my bills on time, and I reconcile every account weekly. This Monday morning, my bank account login failed. I received a simple error that I was not permitted to login. Thinking it was a glitch on my computer, I tried to log in with my phone. I got the same result.
Things happen. Systems have hiccups. I figured I’d try again later in the day. An hour or so later, my college son called to say that his debit card was declined. At that point, I tried again to log in without success, so I called the bank’s customer service line.
After a very long hold, I was greeted by an agent with a very thick accent. I explained the login error and my son’s declined debit transactions. The agent told me, “I am not authorized to discuss this with you. I will transfer you to our fraud department.” Yikes! Ok.
After another long hold and another greeting from a foreign agent, the Fraud Department told me that my account access had indeed been shut down and that I would have to go to the branch to speak with someone in person. The agent would not or could not tell me anything else.
I immediately drove to the nearest branch, where I waited in the lobby until one of the three employees was free, because they hardly staff the branches anymore. I was asked to provide my account number, social security number, driver’s license, debit card, and birthday and validating answers. It felt like an interrogation. Finally, several hours after this headache began, the branch representative told me that a fraud alert had been triggered on ME personally, and that access to every account with my name attached had been removed.
Not frozen. Not temporarily deactivated. REMOVED.
I spent the next two hours at the branch trying to get access back to my accounts and my money. The extremely unfriendly branch manager got involved, treating me like the source of the problem instead of the long-term customer who had been the victim of an incorrect fraud alert. When I asked her to tell me what had caused the fraud alert, she said she didn’t see any notes in the system. She then asked me if my husband and I had ever logged into the accounts from the same computer. Of course, we had! We have joint accounts, and we both helped manage the family finances. She looked down her nose at me and told me that was “insecure activity,” and that was surely what caused the problem. WHAT???
As the branch approached closing time at 4:00 p.m., I still had no resolution. I also had not received any apology for the mistake or how I’d been treated. Every account on which I was a signer – our personal checking and savings, my kids’ checking and savings accounts, my mother-in-law’s accounts, and my business accounts – had their access removed. We had no way to get to any of our money. The branch told me that it would be 2-3 business days before they could restore access to our accounts. Thank goodness we had a credit card that we could use in the meantime because our funds were completely inaccessible.
The nightmare grew in the next few days. They did, in fact, restore access to our accounts a couple of days later, but it had to be an entirely new online banking profile. As I said, they did not deactivate or pause my access – they deleted my online banking profile entirely when this began. I soon realized what this meant – all of the bill pay history in that profile was now gone. The bills that I had set to pay that week – I had no idea if they had been processed or deleted. I called the bank to ask them to tell me which payments were still being processed, and they said they could not see those details. I had no choice but to wait to see if they got paid, and risk being late and paying penalties, or go ahead and pay them again and risk a double payment coming out of my accounts. The many recurring payments I had established, such as our mortgage and utility bills, were all gone and had to be recreated.
This was obviously the final straw. I’d had it with this giant, uncaring bank. It was time to make a change. It was a few weeks later that I had lunch with a great friend, where I vented about the colossal hassle I was now dealing with. She said, “Let me tell you about our bank.” Old Glory Bank was the name, and they were in the early stages of bringing this dream, this mission, to life.
Well, I did move all my accounts. When I went into that former branch to close the last of our accounts with the bank, I still did not get a thank you for 30+ years of business or an apology for what they had put me through. I also realized that moving my accounts to a new bank wasn’t the hassle I feared, and it was infinitely less painful than having all access to my money cut off without notice. It took me a couple of weeks to make the transfers, recreate the bill payments and automatic withdrawals, and learn the new app. Hardly a hassle at all.
I just had my second anniversary as an employee of Old Glory Bank. Most of us at OGB can attest to how we’ve seen God weave the details together beautifully. Even my own story, with a corporate background in financial software, sales, and marketing, was another perfectly placed thread connecting me to this mission. Every day, I feel grateful to be working with such passionate and talented colleagues. What I love most is the heart we share for our customers and protecting their rights. I’m honored to work at America’s community bank. It reminds me of the bank I visited at age 16 with my first paycheck and my shiny new driver’s license. That small town bank cared about me the way Old Glory Bank cares today.
