     Christine Baker (Admin) | Monday, May 01, 2000 - 03:00 pm 
In Dec. 1999 I opened my CompuBank money market account.
Since then, I've had numerous problems, but considering my options and their good CUSTOMER SERVICE, I kept the account.
When they told me a couple of months ago that they were nearly Quicken ready, I also opened a regular checking account.
Customer Service seems to be high up on their list of priorities. 24/7, with the people there being more helpful and not nearly as stupid as at a lot of other banks I've dealt with.
When calling on urgent major problems, I easily got through to supervisors. They were polite, courteous and several times they gave me some of those clickmiles that I have yet to figure out.
It's their overall friendly attitude that kept me from closing my account even though I experienced problems.
My first problem occurred when I tried using their Visa debit card to open a domain hosting account last December.
I was notified that the card was declined.
After calling CompuBank, it took some research to find out that according to Compubank, VISA had made a mistake setting up the account. It was promptly fixed.
I learned the hard way that phone calls have priority over E-mails. I now use the phone when I got something important to deal with.
I am VERY disappointed that they are not Quicken ready as promised. I have NO CHOICE but to look for another bank that's quicken ready.
I'll still keep the CompuBank accounts, but w/o Quicken they are NOT very usable to me.
My other problems are posted in separate topics. |
| Christine Baker (Admin) | Saturday, October 07, 2000 - 12:43 am
The good news: Compubank is finally Quicken ready.
Bad news: I've had a lot of problems lately because they won't accept my PIN for ID verification at all anymore.
Endless hours on the phone with Compubank while in Calgary, then in Fairbanks.
It's important to realize that they don't accept cash deposits and credit card (cash advance) checks.
Overall, I'd say they're great if you got two bank accounts and you're aware of their drawbacks.
It's nice to have 24 hour live customer service. I just couldn't get them to talk to me without revealing ALL my personal static data, inviting identity fraud.
I like their Visa debit card, the only times it didn't work was when I needed cash advances at ATMs in Canada. I don't know whether it's a problem only in Canada, never tried for a cash advance in the US.
I had sent them a bank mail to close my money market account, since I needed the cash in Calgary.
When I got to Fairbanks, I couldn't log into my account one day. Called up to hear that they had closed my CHECKING account. The supervisor I spoke with sure seemed stressed when he figured out what happened. He couldn't wait to get off the phone and run to the department where they were apparently sending out the checks.
My account was open again 1/2 an hour later. Strange enough, I'd been through so many banking/credit card problems during those weeks in Calgary, I wasn't even upset anymore.
I also was a little disappointed over their handling of my dispute of a fraudulent Ebay transaction, but they made an effort and now I have a "temporary" credit.
Apparently VISA doesn't think selling unlicensed copies of MS Office 2000 on Ebay is fraud. Ebay had no problem with it either.
I feel that I should have a second checking account somewhere, but have NO idea where. Didn't like x.com at all, still have an account there but don't use it (see the postings here.)
Reading about x.com, Compubank looks really good again. |
| Jennifer Persinger (Velvet) | Saturday, October 07, 2000 - 05:25 am
You might want to close that X.com acct, Christine. They're now going to start charging $12/mo service fee if you have less than $100 in it per month, and ATM fees are now only refundable for accounts that have $100 or more in them per month. Oh, and they've discontinued the "line of credit" altogether. Within a space of about 48-hours they single-handedly shot themselves in the foot. I'm on a list of over 1000 people, and I can't even begin to count the number of people on it who closed (or are trying to close) their accounts. One even said that the "customer care" representative she talked to sounded absolutely disgusted with X.com!!
On the brighter side, I haven't received any collection calls or mails from them in about a month now!
To go back to the topic, my experience with an online bank is enough to make me stay far, FAR away from *any* online bank. |
| Christine Baker (Admin) | Saturday, October 07, 2000 - 09:29 am
Jennifer, appreciate your suggestions, so far I have NOT been been able to get through to x.com to close my account.
I don't think any of the problems have to do with being an on-line bank. Just look at Union Bank, and I must have banked with literally 20 banks over the last 15 years.
A really NICE feature of CompuBank is that they send me copies of notifications via e-mail, and you can customize the settings so you get e-mail notifications of deposits, when you fall below a certain balance, etc.
I talk to my neighbors, they're all unhappy with their banks, the closest one being 30 miles away, most drive 80+ miles to get to their bank.
One neighbor can't even get a VISA debit card from Wells Fargo, after banking there for years and having his social security check direct deposited. It's very frustrating to HAVE to bank, he could do without if the US government didn't MAKE him.
Another neighbor had to cut short his vacation when BofA erroneously moved all his cash out of his account while he was traveling out of State.
He had tried to get away from BofA previously, closed all his accounts and moved to Security Pacific. A year later he was back at BofA, they bought Security Pacific.
Based on my experiences, CompuBank still is better than the rest. I have yet to get a single recommendation for a good bank. |
