September 2019 by Michael K.
My wife needed to cash out some bonds. It was a pretty painstaking process from start to finish. She talked to someone over the phone who did not mention everything we would need. So initially we forgot a proof of address because she still lives within two states and has not changed her license over yet. We then dealt with a woman who had her own office so I'm guessing she's some kind of manager or loan officer or something. Everything was a question and everything was a problem. She was completely unsure about the process and was calling on 2 or 3 other people to verify things for her. If she is management, I question how she got the job. The fact that, 30+ year old, bonds were in my wife's maiden name was a problem. We had her license, SSC, Birth Cert, and Marriage License thankfully. More than enough proof, but not enough. We needed a proof of PA address...For a federal bond...But its not banks and the government if they dont make you feel like you're doing something wrong. At no point in the multiple phone conversations my wife had with the bank, explaining we recently moved from out of state, because of her job we have to maintain our bank account in the previous state, etc, was it mentioned we needed proof of PA address. We had none, so I thought to pull up our car insurance on our providers app. It has her name and our current mailing address. At first she questioned this because it was a "picture" which I thought was funny because it is good enough for the police. Luckily I had an old paper copy in my car they accepted and while I was grabbing that she called someone to confirm this was acceptable. She also has a problem with the dates on one of the bonds. A stamped date. Apparently because it was month/day/year instead of just month/year she believed it was a mistake. Another phone call to confirm. Everything is fine. I get that she was covering herself but...She just came off completely lost. So, we're off to a severely rocky start here and before even really starting the process, she quipped we could always open an account here. Bad timing considering how this has gone thus far. So she put some info in her computer and my wife signed the backs of the bonds. Then it was over to the tellers to get the cash. This also took quite a bit of time. I guess there's more to it than just a signature, a stamp, looking up the # to confirm the amount, and paying it out. I was off with my son who was coloring. So, now we have our real problem. We cant open an account. So I was hoping I could get two cashiers check, one to pay our rent, and the other so i could photograph the check with my bank's app to deposit it. Our bank is in NJ. The nearest one is like 150 miles away. This, of course, they only do for bank customers. Again, not exactly inspiring us to ever come back when we can switch to a PA bank. I happen to value helpfulness and this bank does not want to help people. They even said for bank customers they charge $5. I can understand charging a non-customer...But people who actually use your bank and you make tons of money off of? So...All in all this is a small bank that is not very knowledgeable, not at all interested in being helpful, and nickel and dimes customers that actually do business with them. Not a bank a smart person would ever want to give their money to.