5 Reasons to Avoid Community Banks - YouTube

Hey, everyone. It's Annie Margarita Yang  back with another video for you today;  

five reasons to avoid community banks. If  you watched my previous video on how to  

choose a bank on a low income, you're  going to find that a lot of the banks  

that will meet the criteria on the five things  I'm telling you to look at when choosing a bank  

are going to be community banks. I used to be  a huge advocate for community banks. I just  

love the fact that their fees are much lower in  general and in general, it's easier to meet the  

conditions to waive fees at their banks compared  to like larger national banks that you'll see all  

over the country. On top of that, their model is  more relationship-based, which is a huge plus.

At the company that I used to work for, our bank  was a community bank, Rockland Trust. There was  

this one time we put $5,000 worth of checks in  the blue mailbox right outside our office and then  

some group of con artists, scam artists put some  sort of sticky adhesive glue into the mailbox and  

fished them out and they made fake IDs and managed  to cash $5,000 worth of checks all in 24 hours.  

The banker at Rockland Trust that I always saw  every time I went in to deposit cash and checks,  

she was so helpful and it was with her help  

throughout the entire investigation that we  got our money back. She was just so on top  

of everything and nature to communicate with me  every few days what the progress of the case was.

I mean, I just love that personal touch that  community banks have. You just won't get the same  

kind of service at a big bank, but in the last 12  months of me working as an accounting manager for  

a property management company and having to deal  with community banks on a regular basis because we  

have checking accounts with them and mortgages,  I just have to say that their biggest weakness  

and drawback is their lack of modern technology.  I think technology is something that will directly  

affect you as someone who's looking for a good  bank. Before I get into the five ways community  

banks just plain old suck when it comes to  their technology department, if you're new here,  

please be sure to subscribe and hit that bell  icon for notifications. I am not here as a You  

Tuber to push products and services on you.  I'm not going to give you the fish. Rather,  

I am going to teach you how to fish, especially  if you earn a low income because I spent several  

years of my life earning a low income and trying  to make do with the limited resources that I had  

in order to get ahead so I'm talking to you based  on experiences. That's why my advice works. I'm  

not here just to push a product on you. You're  going to find that my channel is all about the AAA  

strategy of attitude, approach and action. Today's  video is in the approach category on approaching  

how to choose your bank and maybe why  you should avoid a community bank.

So let's get started. The first one is mobile app.  It was Clinton Savings Bank that made me realize  

this that not every community bank would already  have a mobile app for their customers by now so  

you might not be able to remotely deposit checks.  While Clinton Savings Bank does have a mobile app  

for their personal accounts, they do not have a  mobile app for their business accounts. Basically  

for the business that I work for, it is impossible  for me to remotely deposit checks. There's no  

way I'm going to drive 29 miles just to deposit a  check. I asked them so if you don't have a mobile  

app for businesses and I'm sure you have a lot  of businesses that have accounts with you, how  

are they going to deposit checks? Well, basically  they expect you to mail them. A stamp costs $0.55  

cents right now. So every time you want to deposit  a check, it cost $0.55. It made me think about it. 

If a bank doesn't have a mobile  app for their business customers,  

which is bringing a lot of their revenue, maybe  there are still some community banks out there  

that don't have a mobile app for personal  accounts. That's something you might need to  

check into when you're looking at a community  bank, do they even have a mobile app for you?

The second issue is the running account balance.  What is the running account balance? Basically,  

every time you have a transaction, you're going  to want to see after every single transaction,  

what is the new balance for your bank account?  It wasn't until like I came across Citizens Bank,  

which doesn't have running account balance that  I've realized that I really appreciate the feature  

of a running account balance. Very important.  When you're living on a tight budget, you want  

to be able to look back and analyze on average on  any given month, what was your lowest and highest  

running account balance. Do not to leave too much  money in your checking. Put it in your savings so  

you psychologically don't think it's available  to spend, but don't leave too little money in  

there either because it can cause you to either  overdraft or incur minimum daily balance fees.

The third issue is wire transfers. This  doesn't apply to all community banks, but  

I did come across one, which was Bangor  Savings Bank that had a policy of you can't  

do a wire transfer online and you also can't do  a wire transfer over the phone. If you want to  

do a wire transfer, you have to go in person to  the bank to fill out a form in order for you to  

initiate a wire transfer request. This might be a  big issue for you. I know it was a big issue for  

the person trying to rent one of our apartments  and this guy was coming up from Maine to Boston  

to move here and rent an apartment, right. They needed to put their security deposit down  

and because they couldn't request a wire transfer  online while here in Boston and not in Maine, they  

had to request a cashier's check, which has also  cleared funds so it would work just for us too,  

but the bank mailed us a cashier's check. Not to  our company's name, but instead to that person's  

name, so we couldn't cash the check. Then I had  to mail the check back requesting a new check  

be made out to our company's name and they  did that, but it took two weeks to process.

Then when that second check came  in made out to our company's name,  

I saw that the new cashier's check was missing the  authorized signature, so basically I couldn't cash  

this check anyway and I had to overnight  this check back so it cost us money too.  

I don't understand what's wrong with this  community bank and why you can't initiate  

wire transfer requests online like any other bank,  but this policy could have cost this person the  

apartment because we had due dates and this person  couldn't meet the due dates not because it was his  

fall and not because he didn't have the money,  but because it was totally the bank's fault.

The fourth issue is online access. I can't  believe it's even an issue, but of course,  

yes it is. It's East Cambridge Savings Bank. We  apparently have had this account with them for  

a few years already and I still can't get  online access. They're telling me that we  

already have an online account with them, but  first of all, I don't even know the username  

and I don't know the password to it. Every time I  call customer service for help, it's just hasn't  

gotten done in the last 12 months, so I can't even  tell you how much money is in that account right  

now because we lack online access. So you might  even have that problem yourself. Not only that. 

We went checking the checking account  statements, right, the bank statements  

and they said, oh, you can just log into  your online account and retrieve those.  

Hello? We don't have online access. Oh,  you want us to manually email you those  

statements? We're going to charge  you $5 per statement. Oh my gosh.

Lastly, the fifth technological issue I think a  lot of community banks might have is something  

that I haven't realized until the COVID-19  pandemic hit. That is that a lot of these  

banks do not have the systems and processes  set in place to be able to have their staff  

work remotely. Even after 12 months, I don't know  why they're still struggling with trying to work  

remotely because they should have tried to improve  things along the way in the last 12 months but  

apparently it's still an issue. We did a refinance  on a property to Norwood Bank last month and  

I think it was around December 7th. I asked the  bank to please add this new mortgage to my online  

profile so that I can see how much is due for  the mortgage every month and what's the current  

principal balance, how much you pay in interest,  all of that good stuff. Yeah, it's been three  

weeks and it's still hasn't been processed yet  apparently because their staff cannot do something  

like this remotely. They have to do it in the  office. I'm not sure why something as simple as  

this would require it to be done in the office.  But yeah, apparently that's just the way it is.  

I know the mortgage due date is due soon  and I still don't even know how much is due.

Alright, guys. Those are all my horror stories on  banks for you today. I hope you enjoyed listening  

to my stories. Yeah, if you're looking at  a community bank, just be a little bit more  

wary of what their technology is like because it  is something that I think is going to directly  

affect you personally when you have a bank account  with a community bank, which is their technology.  

I just think that they need to step up  the game. They're just not there yet,  

but maybe when they are there, it's  going to be a great experience for you.

But right now, it's not that great of  an experience. It's something I never  

thought about five, seven years ago, but it's  something I've only realized in the last 12  

months. So I just thought maybe I might give my  two cents on this. All of the information that  

I provide here on my channel is free for you.  If you want to support my channel financially,  

please do buy my book on Amazon, 1001 Ways to  Save Money: Quit Flushing your Hard-Earned Money  

Down the Toilet. I would totally appreciate  it. Do remember to like this video if you do  

and subscribe for more content in the future  and I will see you guys next time. Bye.