[banking, MA] How not to run a bank, Season 2
One of the things that I heartily regret from when I signed up for my business bank account the first time around, was not blogging the whole process from the beginning, because (1) it would have been nice to have a record and (2) comedy gold. Facts I alas only belatedly realized. I wound up dropping by my bank to visit my banker every week for, IIRC, seven consecutive weeks to fix one thing or another.
But all is not lost! I get to do it all again. And in less than 24 hours since I signed up for a small business bank account (actually, two accounts, a checking and a savings) and we've already had the first snafu.
I can't guarantee that they will give me further occasions to blog, but I figure it's a win-win situation. Either everything goes fine, and I get to participate in the economy without my books getting screwed up (i.e. if I have to start running business expenses through my personal bank account), or I can provide entertainment.
Before proceeding to point and laugh/sob at the bank I've chosen, I'd like to award Santander a dishonorable mention. Upon realizing they had a deposit-taking ATM in Porter Square, I went to their website to review their terms for business bank accounts. As of yesterday, when I went to the "Business" tab (https://www.santanderbank.com/us/business), all of the types of bank accounts on the mouse-over menu 404'd. That might have been a product of which browser I was in, and I don't remember which it was. Today, I just checked in Safari (antique) and Firefox (42.0 - up to date), which show the personal banking products under the "Business" tab. Chromium, which I just updated to 47.0.2526.80, now shows the right thing (business banking products) with working links.
Also, when you go to the Branch and ATM locator on their website, the map is just badly wrong [big image] (One Porter Square is where I drew the star. There is actually an ATM there, across the street from the one at #6 which is inside the CVS. I, in fact, was trying to look that specific ATM up to figure out if it accepts deposits, to save me having to go out in the rain to find out the hard way, when I called up this map. I have no idea if there is also an ATM where they've placed #9, but I'm quite certain that that's not "One Porter Square".)
I'm reminded of a computer security talk I attended at SDBP. The presenter mentioned once consulting for a certain US agency concerned with national security, which he declined to specify. The agency's website had been hacked and defaced. Now, they had done all the reasonable, responsible things to make sure their actual national-security-related computers were well guarded and protected from the internet, but you can't do that with a website. But, they had figured, it was just their website. Their brochure on the internet. But, no: the press made serious hay out of the incident, because, well, it looked really bad that they couldn't defend their own website from random hackers. So even though no important assets were threatened or harmed, it was a PR fiasco that their website was defaced.
Santander has in bright bold red letters across their home page the message, "We'd like to be your bank. How can we make that happen?" Dear Santander: you could try fixing your website. I understand that maybe your inability to get javascript menus to work right on Macs is not indicative of any substantive issues with your otherwise highly technological enterprise. But right now, it's all I have to judge you on, and it's making me feel like chosing to bank with you is as responsible a decision as entrusting my funds to some random person I met in an alley who promises to hold on to them for me and give them back whenever I want, sure, no problem, you can trust me, lady.
I mean, there is some part of me plaintively asking how it is you expect me to trust you not to lose my money, when you can't seem to find your own ATMs.
So the winning bank is, alas, Bank of America. I'm sorry. It's got the best location; I can practically spit on one of their ATMs from my office, which could come in handy. Also, they're giving me a credit card; if I can manage to get all my expenses onto it, and they add up to enough, BoA will waive my bank fees.
I went in yesterday to open the account. Once we had just about everything up and running, the banker escorted me to the ATM for me to test out my temporary ATM card by depositing the cash with which to open the account, which is a minimum of $100. I had borrowed the $100 from myself, from my taxes fund. To open my accounts, I needed to "fund" the checking account first. So I deposited $100 of my money earmarked for paying taxes into my checking account. That all went swimmingly, and I went on my way to see a patient.
The patient, of course, paid me.
So about two hours after I deposited that initial $100, I took my brand new ATM card and the check the patient had written me to my nigh-near-enough-to-spit-on ATM. I deposited the check in the checking account, as is my wont. And then, as is also my wont, I attempted to transfer 1/3rd of the payment I just received and the $100 that belongs in my taxes fund into my new supposedly-linked savings account, which I opened precisely to store my taxes in.
Of course, the machine would not let me do this. I thought maybe it was because the $100 had to be there for some minimum time to work its "funding" magic, so I tried to transfer just the 1/3rd of the deposit I just made.
Machine wouldn't do that either. The error message said something about accounts not being linked.
So I called the customer service number, and did the dance of authentication with both the computer and the customer service rep, and then asked what was wrong with my account.
The customer service rep informed me it was just because my account was so freshly hatched, and not yet entirely filtered into the computers, and the situation should resolve itself by start of business, tomorrow.
I.e. today.
So today, I dropped by the ATM and tried again. Again, it gave me an error message that the accounts were not linked.
So again, I called customer service. This time, the customer service rep informed me that there was some error, and my savings account was not actually linked to my ATM card. She fixed it for me; and when I returned to the ATM it was working.
*rolls eyes*
I would be crankier about this, but for that there is a mantra I repeat over and over: "Even so, they have not yet proven themselves even a tenth as incompetent as Citibank."
BoA does not support plus addressing in customer email addresses.
Among other limitations.
To be continued?
But all is not lost! I get to do it all again. And in less than 24 hours since I signed up for a small business bank account (actually, two accounts, a checking and a savings) and we've already had the first snafu.
I can't guarantee that they will give me further occasions to blog, but I figure it's a win-win situation. Either everything goes fine, and I get to participate in the economy without my books getting screwed up (i.e. if I have to start running business expenses through my personal bank account), or I can provide entertainment.
Before proceeding to point and laugh/sob at the bank I've chosen, I'd like to award Santander a dishonorable mention. Upon realizing they had a deposit-taking ATM in Porter Square, I went to their website to review their terms for business bank accounts. As of yesterday, when I went to the "Business" tab (https://www.santanderbank.com/us/business), all of the types of bank accounts on the mouse-over menu 404'd. That might have been a product of which browser I was in, and I don't remember which it was. Today, I just checked in Safari (antique) and Firefox (42.0 - up to date), which show the personal banking products under the "Business" tab. Chromium, which I just updated to 47.0.2526.80, now shows the right thing (business banking products) with working links.
Also, when you go to the Branch and ATM locator on their website, the map is just badly wrong [big image] (One Porter Square is where I drew the star. There is actually an ATM there, across the street from the one at #6 which is inside the CVS. I, in fact, was trying to look that specific ATM up to figure out if it accepts deposits, to save me having to go out in the rain to find out the hard way, when I called up this map. I have no idea if there is also an ATM where they've placed #9, but I'm quite certain that that's not "One Porter Square".)
![the map is just badly wrong [big image]](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/siderea/1391196/47757/47757_original.jpg){kind=link}
I'm reminded of a computer security talk I attended at SDBP. The presenter mentioned once consulting for a certain US agency concerned with national security, which he declined to specify. The agency's website had been hacked and defaced. Now, they had done all the reasonable, responsible things to make sure their actual national-security-related computers were well guarded and protected from the internet, but you can't do that with a website. But, they had figured, it was just their website. Their brochure on the internet. But, no: the press made serious hay out of the incident, because, well, it looked really bad that they couldn't defend their own website from random hackers. So even though no important assets were threatened or harmed, it was a PR fiasco that their website was defaced.
Santander has in bright bold red letters across their home page the message, "We'd like to be your bank. How can we make that happen?" Dear Santander: you could try fixing your website. I understand that maybe your inability to get javascript menus to work right on Macs is not indicative of any substantive issues with your otherwise highly technological enterprise. But right now, it's all I have to judge you on, and it's making me feel like chosing to bank with you is as responsible a decision as entrusting my funds to some random person I met in an alley who promises to hold on to them for me and give them back whenever I want, sure, no problem, you can trust me, lady.
I mean, there is some part of me plaintively asking how it is you expect me to trust you not to lose my money, when you can't seem to find your own ATMs.
So the winning bank is, alas, Bank of America. I'm sorry. It's got the best location; I can practically spit on one of their ATMs from my office, which could come in handy. Also, they're giving me a credit card; if I can manage to get all my expenses onto it, and they add up to enough, BoA will waive my bank fees.
I went in yesterday to open the account. Once we had just about everything up and running, the banker escorted me to the ATM for me to test out my temporary ATM card by depositing the cash with which to open the account, which is a minimum of $100. I had borrowed the $100 from myself, from my taxes fund. To open my accounts, I needed to "fund" the checking account first. So I deposited $100 of my money earmarked for paying taxes into my checking account. That all went swimmingly, and I went on my way to see a patient.
The patient, of course, paid me.
So about two hours after I deposited that initial $100, I took my brand new ATM card and the check the patient had written me to my nigh-near-enough-to-spit-on ATM. I deposited the check in the checking account, as is my wont. And then, as is also my wont, I attempted to transfer 1/3rd of the payment I just received and the $100 that belongs in my taxes fund into my new supposedly-linked savings account, which I opened precisely to store my taxes in.
Of course, the machine would not let me do this. I thought maybe it was because the $100 had to be there for some minimum time to work its "funding" magic, so I tried to transfer just the 1/3rd of the deposit I just made.
Machine wouldn't do that either. The error message said something about accounts not being linked.
So I called the customer service number, and did the dance of authentication with both the computer and the customer service rep, and then asked what was wrong with my account.
The customer service rep informed me it was just because my account was so freshly hatched, and not yet entirely filtered into the computers, and the situation should resolve itself by start of business, tomorrow.
I.e. today.
So today, I dropped by the ATM and tried again. Again, it gave me an error message that the accounts were not linked.
So again, I called customer service. This time, the customer service rep informed me that there was some error, and my savings account was not actually linked to my ATM card. She fixed it for me; and when I returned to the ATM it was working.
*rolls eyes*
I would be crankier about this, but for that there is a mantra I repeat over and over: "Even so, they have not yet proven themselves even a tenth as incompetent as Citibank."
BoA does not support plus addressing in customer email addresses.
Among other limitations.
To be continued?