What follows this introduction is a letter I wrote to the Chairman and President of BayBanks, Inc. regarding the recent incursion of BayBank into the State of New Hampshire.
For those not aware of the New Hampshire banking situation over the last few years, the State used to have a law that required all New Hampshire resident banks to by owned by New Hampshire entities. Then, during the whole federal savings & loan debacle, a large number of major New Hampshire banks merged, and subsequently, the laws were changed to allow out-of-state ownership of New Hampshire banks.
This change in law allowed several banks to come into the state, most recently BayBanks, Inc., a Boston, Massachusetts based bank which does business under the BayBank name, and most recently merged with Bank of Boston. This is where I come in. I had been banking with a small regional bank called NFS Savings Bank, FSB, based out of Nashua, New Hampshire, since 1989. In early 1995, BayBank acquired NFS, with the integration of NFS into the BayBank system occurring in October of 1995. Ever since then, I have had nothing but problems with my banking. at BayBank, and am unfortunately stuck with BayBank if I want to have access to a decent sized local bank, since their buying spree has also purchased Cornerstone Bank. Cornerstone Bank is another local bank chain here in the Derry, New Hampshire area.
To sum up my opinion of BayBank, it would suffice to say that BayBanks, Inc. is a giant banking organization that appears to not feel accountable to its customers, both in terms of commitments it and its staff make, as well as in their arrogance.
Their current Richter Scale rating for BayBanks, Inc. is a paltry 3.5 out of a possible 10.0. This rating may change if their attitude and responsiveness changes for the better - something I doubt will happen, but one can always hope.
If you have an interesting BayBank story to share, drop me a line. - Jake Richter
March 5, 1996 - An update to this saga...
A couple of weeks ago, I received a letter from the State of New Hampshire Banking Department, advising me that my complaint against BayBank had been forwarded to the Federal Office of Thrift Supervision in Jersey City, New Jersey, as they are the ones to handle such complaints for the New England area.
A couple of days ago, I received a letter from the Office of Thrift Supervision (which is part of the Department of the Treasury) stating "We are reviewing this matter and shall advise you in writing of the results of this review pending receipt and examination of the institution's response. The review process will take approximately 30 days."
This morning I received a phone call from Bob Rzasa, the Chief Operating Officer of BayBank FSB of New Hampshire. Mr. Rzasa apologized for the problems we had had with BayBank, and admitted that while some things had improved with BayBank's purchase of NFS Savings Bank, other things had certainly fallen between the cracks, our situation being an example of that. He also indicated that while he was with NFS, the bank, as a smaller institution, was better able to support the commitments made by its employees, but that a bank BayBank's size is not as flexible. The net result of our discussion is that BayBank will waive any and all service charges on our personal and business accounts, and will pay to have a complete set of new checks printed for the business account, since an account change is required. He also offered that if we had any other problems whatsoever with BayBank in the future, we should feel free to call him and he will resolve the matter personally.
The situation we had is more or less resolved, at least for the next year. I'm not sure if Mr. Razza's call was initiated as part of the Office of Thrift Supervision investigation or not, but I'm willing to give him and BayBank the benefit of the doubt that it just took their bureaucracy a while to get our letter passed down through "proper channels". His offer of being personally available to resolve any other problems we might encounter is a generous one, and not having any service charges whatsoever is some consolation, even though the issue was not the minor amounts money involved as much as it was the principle of the matter - a company should support its employees and customers and BayBank didn't. However, as a result of the amends made, I've upgraded their Richter Scale rating from a paltry 3.5, to a more or less average 6 out of 10.
Click here to see the letter Mr. Rzasa sent.
February 14, 1996
Mr. W. M. Crozier
President & Chairman
BayBanks, Inc.
175 Federal Street
Boston, MA 02110
Dear Mr. Crozier,
I'm writing to share with you some of the problems your company has caused my family and business as part of your acquisition of NFS Savings Bank in New Hampshire last year, with hopes that you will be able to remedy our situation, since no one else at our local branches appears to be able to do so.
Basically, we have had several time consuming encounters with BayBank policies, where either the people we've spoken with (usually managers) have not had the authority to correct situations, or have indicated we could do something, only to later be overruled by some new BayBank policy.
Personal Account
Our first problem was in December when we discovered a mysterious
service charge on our (we thought) grandfathered personal checking
account.
We had been customers of NFS in Londonderry, New Hampshire, with our personal accounts for almost 7 years before their acquisition by BayBanks. In October, when the BayBank transition occurred, we were in possession of an NFS NOW Checking account. Alas, as we were to discover, your conversion mechanism put us into a BayBank Premium Value Account, and destroyed all record of the fact that we had previously been an NFS customer and that we should have been grandfathered with an NFS NOW Account.
We managed to get the service charge removed from our account once we finally found someone from the old NFS who verified we in fact were long term customers, but were unable to get anyone to properly put us back in the NFS NOW Account we should have been in to start with. We were told it "was impossible because of the computer systems", and that although we were supposed have been grandfathered as indicated in the original BayBank brochure we received, that would not be viable. In effect, all of our years of bank loyalty were washed down the drain. We had to settle for a BayBank NOW account which has all sorts of different minimum requirements and service charges.
Safety Deposit Box
The second of our trials with BayBank was when we opened up a
safety deposit box for our company with the Londonderry branch
(in October, shortly after NFS formally became BayBank), after
first confirming that we would be able to transfer our safety
deposit box to the Derry office, once that office converted from
Cornerstone Bank to BayBank. Last week, we finally got around
to attempting this procedure, only to discover that yet again
we got the short end of the stick. Turns out that we were misinformed
by the original bank staffer, and that there was no way to transfer
safety deposit boxes to another branch, and that the only way
to accomplish a "transfer" would be to close the box
in Londonderry, and open a new one in Derry. However, adding to
our misery was the fact that BayBank doesn't refund safety deposit
box fees, and only after complaining extensively about being misinformed
in the first place were we able to get the main office (called
by the local service representative) to agree to a 50% refund
of $80, which still left us with loosing several month's rental
fees.
Business Account
The final straw came about today, when we tried to change the
Tax ID on our grandfathered NFS Business Checking account (in
the name of Stroke of Color) to reflect our company's new incorporated
status.
When we had checked with BayBank staff at the Londonderry branch about doing this in early January, we were told it wouldn't be a problem, and we were given the necessary forms to fill out and return once we had obtained our corporate Tax ID from the government. This was a relief to us, as we're really just in the process of getting our business off the ground and can't justify keeping high balances (and yes, $7,500 is a large balance for a small company) in an account in order to avoid high monthly account fees, something required by BayBank's Business Checking Accounts, but not by our grandfathered NFS Business Checking account. This is in addition to the fact that we have a large number of computer checks that we don't want to see wasted (we're on our third different account set in less than 6 months thanks to the acquisition).
Well, as fate would have it, today we finally brought the forms in, having just received our corporate tax ID from Uncle Sam. Lo and behold, we're told that all of a sudden, we can't change the Tax ID on the existing business without opening one of the onerous new BayBank Business accounts.
FAX Number
And, as if that wasn't enough, when I called your
office to obtain your FAX number, I was told that your FAX would
be busy today, and I should mail this letter, as I have. When
I asked for the number so I could send the FAX during off hours,
or on another day, the person on the other end of the line in
your office appeared not to understand what I was asking for.
It would have been much more diplomatic for her to just say that
your FAX number is not given out, instead of playing games regarding
"busy" FAXes.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, all our of problems could have easily
been resolved if BayBank adopted a "Customers First"
attitude, empowering senior branch staff to fulfill the commitments
they verbally made, or that BayBank made in writing. Instead,
the attitude we sense BayBank purveying is one of arrogance, making
a statement that "we're the dominant bank in southern New
Hampshire, we set all the rules, we can change them at any time,
and what our employees tell you does not have to be honored by
the bank". I find it particularly distressing that a company
BayBank's size isn't held to the same standard as a supermarket,
where if something is incorrectly priced, the store still honors
the incorrect price, and then corrects the price so that future
customers won't be confused. Both the supermarket and BayBank
share the same customers, but not the same customer service attitude.
The result of this attitude has been that we have spent countless hours arguing with people about things that should have been easy to deal with and resolve, and have gotten very stressed and frustrated with your company as a result. In terms of finances, we figure that all these hassles have probably cost us several hundred dollars in lost time, lost fees, and lost interest, nevermind what this all has done to our mental and physical well-being.
What are our options at this point? Probably the simplest is to look to move our various accounts to a bank that's more pleasant to deal with, a bank that cares more about its customers and sticks to the commitments it and its employees make.
A copy of this letter is also going to Mr. R. Roland Roberge, New Hampshire's State Banking Commissioner, in the hopes that when you acquire your next New Hampshire bank chain, you'll be less likely to ride roughshod over the rights and interests of New Hampshire residents who have accounts in those banks.
We'll also be posting this letter in certain public fora, at least one of which will be our Web site (http://www.strokeofcolor.com) in an area reserved for reviews of various products and services, aptly named "The Richter Scale". If BayBank manages to correct the various problems we've encountered, we will update our postings to reflect this.
I sincerely hope that this letter will serve as a catalyst in getting your company to realize that your customers, both as individuals and small businesses, are important to your future and deserve to be treated with respect and honor.
Sincerely yours,
Jake Richter