The worst of all worlds, First Hawaiian has the terrible service of a large bank coupled with all the limitations of a small bank. You cannot call the local branch without being diverted to the main number, where you can expect 45-60 minute hold times. Once you finally get someone, they will likely either be incompetent or belligerent. Your issue will never be resolved, unless you get extremely lucky and manage to get the one manager who actually knows anything.
I should have known when I walked into the Hilo branch, and saw that all of the desks, including the main teller counter, were eaten through by termites, that this bank has no standards. That's an apt metaphor for the entire bank, an institution that might have been decent many years ago, but has since rotted from the inside out.
My particular issue was that my ACH payment to the State and County for taxes was rejected by First Hawaiian. I spent over 3 hours on hold and fighting with various representatives before finally getting a manager who acknowledged:
1) They migrated their systems in May, and now require customers to add 00 to the start of their account numbers for ACH payments. This isn't documented anywhere online, but supposedly they sent letters to this effect to customers. The manager told me to check my online messages, but (surprise, surprise), there was no such message. She was at a loss as to why I wasn't notified. She also acknowledged that First Hawaii had been working with the State, but hadn't quite gotten the issues resolved since May (five months ago).
2) Each ACH payment is checked by a human before being rejected. This means a bank employee deliberately rejected ACH payments with valid account numbers just because the customer didn't include the 00 prefix, even though prior to May numbers without the prefix were accepted. That's right, First Hawaiian changed their systems and then gave their customers NO grace period to change all of their saved payment methods.
3) The bank provided all new customers with starter checks that have invalid formatting for account numbers. These checks don't adhere to the ANSI X9 standard that all interstate banks are supposed to follow. The checks have the account number and check number transposed, have a special character interspersed with the account number (making the actual account number almost impossible for customers to deduce), and are missing the leading 00s that are now apparently required by First Hawaii's new system. The bank left these improperly-formatted checks in the hands of customers, only replacing them when the customer ordered new checks, and knowing that the old checks would result in issues with ACH and other forms of payment. These checks don't match any of the sample checks on any ACH processing websites, virtually guaranteeing First Hawaiian customers will have their payments rejected.
The service I've received from First Hawaiian has been the worst from any bank, and I've been a Bank of America customer. THAT is saying something. Seriously, use any other bank. It can't possibly be as bad as this one. read more
