For the record, I've used internet banks for 15 years and my business is largely online and I utilize a UPS store for mail and business address. All of this becomes an obstacle..
* Friday 10:00am - my family member is to send me two wires, one to my business account and one to my personal account. She arrives at the bank to do so and makes a payment of $60, $30 for each wire fee.
* Friday 4:12pm - six hours have passed and I receive a call from a lady that leaves me a terse and cryptic voice message: "Bob, give me a call back at 843-xxx-8091." I receive marketing and robo calls every day and I nearly deleted the message and blocked the number assuming it was a spam message. I called my family member to see if I should be expecting a call from the bank since the wires hadn't been received yet and she said yes, the bank just called her and then was calling me to verify some information. I assumed they just wanted to confirm the account numbers were correct, which is proper due diligence for wire transfers.
Ms. Bank Lady, who I assume was the manager or person in-charge of sending wires, then called my sender/family member back after speaking to me (by now it was closing in on 5pm) and said they had several "red flags" with me, including 1) the business address I gave didn't match whatever address they were expecting 2) they thought it strange that I didn't use banks in the town that I lived in. 3) some Google search Ms. Bank Lady did of me or my business showed a storefront (which is correct by the way.) Ms. Bank Lady's terse and distrustful tone was used with my family member as well, apparently, which is surprising since she's a customer there and it's her money that's in question. Bless my family member for apologizing to Ms Bank Lady on my behalf that my address and/or banking situation doesn't meet her expectations. She then begrudgingly 'agrees' to send one of the wires before the bank closes and so I never received the money at all that day, nor over the weekend, and then she suggests my family member must come into the bank again on Monday to further apologize before sending the second wire to my business. However, when she arrives she's told they can't send that wire (insert whatever explanation here). So, we are out $30 for that because they didn't refund for that wire and we received cashiers checks instead (typically costing $2-3 each at any other bank).
*Concerns: 1) wires must be treated with urgency - if they aren't followed-through within a couple hours, that's a major performance issue, especially considering the high fees paid for them and the time-sensitive use case for wired funds 2) a terse and distrustful tone by a bank representative to customers is never acceptable, full-stop, even if they view you as a criminal (as this one apparently viewed me) 3) it's never required that you be in-person to send a wire-I've been sending them for decades 4) some banks explain away poor customer service with draconian KYC laws under the pretense that they are "protecting themselves and the you, the customer". In this case, the bank was uncomfortable with my choice of banks, business address, whatever. It's unfortunate that KYC laws have made pedantic cops out of banks, reducing customer service and impairing the ability for legitimate people and businesses to trade with one another. If you are considering working with this bank, you might consider closely that they apparently aren't comfortable with you trading with internet-based enterprises or businesses that predominately function online as I do. My perception is they aren't used to people who aren't living, working and trading with others within the immediate local area and that precludes anyone like myself. read more
