WTF.

I am a small business owner. I have a business account. I deposit checks, cash, and my CC processor makes nearly daily deposits.

Today, I went to use my card to purchase fuel. Declined. Hmm. Tried to login in to my account from my phone. Access blocked. WTF?

Called the bank. Found out that they 'decided' that a check I deposited from a customer yesterday might be forged. So, they restricted access to ALL of my money. The check in question was $298 (and MOST certainly not forged, as the OWNER of the company wrote it while I watched). I have over $15k in the account. I asked why they didn't call me. "Oh, we will send you a letter detailing what you have to do." I asked what about checks to vendors I had written. "Those will not be honored, your account is restricted." WTF? They basically told me too bad. We don't care if your checks bounce, and no, we won't cover any fees resulting from it.

I lost my shit. This is a NEW business and the last freaking thing I need is to bounce checks to vendors I'm just building a relationship with. I spend TWO hours on the phone escalating to different supervisors. FINALLY I got to the right place. They released the restriction on my account, except for the "forged" check. Now, I have to call my customer Monday morning and have them contact Chase to 'clear up the mistake". A mistake that is wholly Chase's fault, but by policy, even though they know it's their mistake - they can't fix without talking to the account owner. Want to know what I finally found out the mistake was?

Part of the guys signature crossed his account number. When the check was scanned in, their system (due to the writing) turned a 1 into a 4. Making it look like it was a fake check drawn on someone else's account.

Needless to say, I am not impressed. As soon as it's cleared up, I'm going down to Chase and pulling ALL my money out (personal and business). I can't risk my reputation on their shitty ass system that can't even properly read account numbers.


So, where should I go?  I'm thinking it's probably time to start building a relationship with a smallish local bank.

Avoid desert schools credit union.  They won't be any better and most likely will be worse

I use Sun West FCU and Comerica. I really like the personal service of those banks and have never ever had an issue with them..... but mostly Comerica. I think either one would meet or exceed your needs.

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Elaborate, please.  I've been with Desert Schools since 1970.

Sometimes having a personal contact makes a big difference. I can get you info if you'd like. Shoot me an IM or text/call me Raged.

I have been with desert schools for 43 years.  I don't recall having any problems with them.

Worked at Desert Schools for awhile. It is run more like a bank than a credit union.
If it works for you and you haven't had any problems, that is great.

Been out of the loop on good local credit unions since I left the industry about 2 years ago, Tempe Schools, TruWest, Arizona Federal were some of the better local credit unions to deal with.

MidFirst Bank.  Just down the street @ T-bird & 7th.   Great service.  I left Chase for similar reasons 3 years ago.

I love Deer valley credit union!  Nothing but helpful and nice!

McMillan got dropped by Bank of America and went to National Bank of Arizona. Gun friendly and local.

I use Western State Bank because of a long relationship and small business lending.

Chase did the SAME thing to me...then their "fix" duplicated the error..TWICE. 3 separate holds on a money order.
Went to Wells Fargo a couple days later. I have also been with Desert Schools for many years. I have learned multiple accounts while a pain in the butt...is the only potential security

Have you tried Arizona State Credit Union? I like them.

And like Jason said, don't keep all of your eggs in one basket. My eggs are in several baskets.

Issue with desert schools were as follows
I was a "member" for 23 years
same employer for 15 years
2 previous auto loans paid off with them
good credit with one hiccup, unbeknownst to me baby mama (ex) had unnecessary medical test done and let $600 go to collections
turned me down on a $5k loan towards a $14k truck I was making $9k down on
once they told me about the issue I paid the debt and  they wouldn't work with me or tell me when they might.

this part craps on the OPs beef but I had a second account with chase and they covered  new vehicle finance and has given me no problems

My biggest problem was when I tried to deposit a bonus check at the same time as a regular check. The teller told me she couldn't do the transactions because they were above her drawer limit. (I was at the drive through.) I went inside, and threw a minor hissy, over it. They took my deposit, and were polite, even when I was being a jerk.

So, I'd put them on the list to look at. Depending on distance to tellers, ATM's, and so forth, you might find a better choice. Good Luck!

I currently use Deer valley Credit Union for personal and business, have been with Desert Schools for almost 10 years without any problems.

Truwest Credit Union.  Local and awesome credit union.  They also have a smaller presence in Texas.  They were started in 1952.

https://www.truwest.org/

Desert Schools has a reputation in the credit union industry of being run like a bank.  They don't have a very good rep in the industry.

I have multiple accounts at Desert Schools, which I've had for many years.  They screwed my stuff up so bad, as soon as I get back from overseas I'm going to close my accounts.

We almost went with BMO Harris for our small biz.  (Didn't because their online system didn't work well with trust accounts and our accountant).  What experience we had was very positive as far as customer service goes.  We're with BofA now.  Their online system works for us although customer service has been very spotty.

Credit Union West had been good to me the past 15 years. I would recommend them. Plus side is you get atm charge reimbursement.

My beef with desert schools was nothing good counted for shit because of one hiccup and once the hiccup was corrected there was no solution or time frame offered .  But I will keep an open eye with chase in the future and probably put a couple grand somewhere else local jic.

Was this right around the same time as the downturn? 2007-2010?

Almost no financial institution will lend to you if you have an outstanding collection account. Once you got it paid, I would have told you to try again in 3-6months but honestly they are told to not give a specific time because there are no guarantees and too many variables.


I have no idea on that one. Drawer limit generally means how much cash she can have in her drawer.
New tellers have limits to the size of checks they can deposit, usually starts at around $1-2k and then will usually go to $4-5k after a few months of no bad checks returning but drive-thru tellers are usually more experienced....

Even if it was above my limit I would have still deposited those, payroll check + bonus check from the same place = unlikely to be fake.

No idea what she was doing/thinking.

Don't go to wells Fargo... they burned me twice.  

richard

I have had shockingly good luck with BBVA Compass of all places.  They are a big bank, and I normally HATE big banks. (only with them because they bought out Kachina Arizona)

We had an incident a while back where checks were stolen from the mail, forged, and then cashed.

Compass covered everything, opened up a new account, and set up the old account so that it was "restricted".  I just had to give them a white list of all outstanding checks and to whom they were sent.  Only problem is that I no longer have my account number memorized.

I ran a $3.5M company through Bank of America.  It was flawless and they kissed my ass at every opportunity.

I had a car loan with Security Pacific. BofA bought them out. It took them 15 minutes to a: discover I didn't have a BofA account, b: that I wanted to pay a car loan, c: what account to apply it against. I finally paid it off 3 months later, and never use them if there is any other option.  

Wouldn't it be nice If they treated all their customers like they had 3.5 mill in the bank? [/wakeup] Oh, sorry, you were saying?

No offense, but that doesn't sound right. I can't speak to DSFCU's lending policies, but if that was the only issue you wouldn't (or shouldn't) have been declined. There's not a lending channel in the world where a small, non-financial collection by itself will kill a deal. It just doesn't happen, especially in secured/semi-secured lending channels.

Either the underwriter who looked at it was completely incompetent, someone didn't give you the full story, and/or there were more credit issues than stated.


Guessing you haven't done much lending since it's actually the exact opposite. Though you'll tend to see mortgage lenders requiring collections be paid at closing.


OP, honestly you're going to run into one-off scenarios where a bank has completely FUBAR'd someone with every bank and credit union from the Pacific to the Atlantic. People, and computers at times, make mistakes and in order to cover their asses they're still going to follow their policies to resolution even if it boiled down to bank error. They're not going to disregard a policy that could cost them their job.

Was this a check you did a mobile deposit on? I can't ever get that shit to work right.

I know a few business owners that use national bank of arizona.  I used to have an account there and had no problems. Only closed the account due to convenience of a closer bank to my house.

It does seem that the more money you flow through a certain banking institution the easier they become to deal with.  Anyone that knows me in real life knows I'm obviously not pushing 7 figures through BOA's doors, but I have (and have had in the past) multiple lines of credit, multiple loans, multiple savings and checking accounts over the past 7 years and I've always had good service with them. Maybe I'm just lucky?

Yup

Funnily enough, I can speak of DSFCU's lending policies, as of 2011-2012, and AZFCU's, as of 2007-2011. I can also speak of many other institutions who were not lending to clients/members that came to see me to put in a loan application.
Heck, at DSFCU we couldn't even open a free checking account for you if you didn't have a 640 FICO or had outstanding collection accounts.

Edit- I remember having to request exceptions on pretty much perfect applications where they met/exceeded every other parameter but had a handful of late payments.
Maybe lending policies have been greatly relaxed since I was doing it, but from what I have heard from people still in finance, things are pretty similar.

Mine wouldn't go through once because it kept reading the $ sign as a 5 but it's usually because it's too dark, frustrating as shit.


I can see CUs having membership requirements which effectively limits the pool of eligible customers, but I approve hundreds of thousands of dollars in small business credit daily to customers with medical collections and it's nothing new. Few months ago I did a deal for a guy 3 years out of a short sale and more recently recommended approval for one with a recent bankruptcy.

I have been using AZ State Credit Union for the last five years or so and have been very happy with them.

It just got better.

My wife (co-owner) tried to activate her business debit card.  She was told the card was unable to be activated, because it was reported lost.  Apparently by me.  

Further, they told her we could NOT get a new card for 30 days, since we had made an address change.    She asked "What address change".  "Well, when you opened the account, you gave address X which was printed on your temporary checks, and when your checks were made you changed the address to address Y. So, your ability to order anything new is on hold for 30 days."

First, WE didn't make a change.  The "professional" banker did.  He printed our temporary checks with our home address on them.  Obviously, we didn't want to write business checks with our home address, so he said he would correct it on the 'real' checks - which he did.  This shows in their system as an address change and therefore we can't do anything for 30 days.

Holy shit.  What a fucking mess.  We'll be at a local credit union before the end of the week.

i have chase and desert schools.


dont really like either but I like chase for conveniences( atms everywhere, mobile app) and I like desert schools for low APR loans. so I guess im trying the "best of both worlds"

but i agree with people that say you should keep your money in more than one place.

Wow, were these interactions with a branch? Sounds like they need to switch to cashiering at Walmart.

This.

Used to be at Desert Schools when I was a teacher.  Can't stand them now.

The bank would NOT be liking me after they pulled that shit with me..