We had a nice local bank in Chicago (Harris, if you're curious- I recommend them). We had wanted to go with a local bank here, but didn't want to sacrifice ATM coverage. Alas, that seemed to be impossible-I may be wrong on this, but there are no non-Bank of America / Chase ATMs in Westbury. Oh, there are WaMus, but Chase just bought them (who approves these mergers?!) so they're the same thing now anyway.
Anyway, I didn't have much hope for Chase, as national bank spells trouble in my experience. Citibank handled my student loans for years (they're now consolidated with the government directly. Um, yay?) and they were really incompetent.
We were pleasantly surprised by this Chase location. They've figured out how to compensate for the size of their bank by assigning new account holders a personal banker at the nearest office. We got Giancarlo, who is very friendly, and who gave us his card so we could call him directly anytime there's a problem, instead of dealing with an 800 number.
The only hitch in setting up our checking accounts was that he initially copied down the wrong address from our mortgage paperwork, almost setting up the account with our selllers' address instead of ours. He caught the mistake quickly though, and no harm occurred.
We got debit cards that let us accrue miles on United, which is nice because I already have a bunch of saved miles with them. And this way I can keep my low APR credit card and not trade it for a higher APR rewards-based card. Of course, most of us know that airline miles are a total scam. For every 2 dollars we spend we accrue 1 mile. To get a domestic flight ticket it costs 10,000 accrued miles. Thus, we get one free flight for every $20,000 we spend on the debit card. Better than no free flights, but still...
I had a slight problem setting up my credit card wherein Chase card security called me but didn't bother to leave a message, and the number they called from wouldn't permit callbacks. (They then tried my husband's cell, but "couldn't tell him anything" even though both of our names are on the account.) Instead of trying in vain for most of the day to figure out the problem, I was able to call Giancarlo from my home to resolve it for me.
So I may have ended up disliking Chase if it weren't for having a friendly guy there who we can count on to help us out when we need it.
P.S. For a good time, try their envelope free check-depositing through ATMs. Where have I been? This is SO cool! You can deposit up to 30 checks at once and it sorts and scans an amount from them, spitting out a receipt with photos of the checks on it if you so choose. Brilliant!
No indoor ATMs at this location- only driveup. I am starting to suspect Houstonians don't like to get out of their air conditioned cars. read more