Closing my late mother's accounts has been a three month exercise in incompetence, chaos and confusion. To even try to accomplish anything, I must go to a branch. The South Lamar branch seems to have a revolving door personnel policy--I rarely even saw the same person in the banker position, despite going on the same day of the week each visit.
To add to that, each time I went in, the previous visit's promise to ""take care of everything"" turned out to be empty. Often what was done was incorrect, or incomplete, and I kept finding that I had to insist on specifics to accomplish them.
It took three visits to try to get the checking account transferred into my name. Yes, I had all the legal documentation. The third time, the branch manager told me I didn't need to put the account in my name, since I didn't need an estate account. This was the opposite of what one of her bankers had told me on the first visit.
When I went to close the two CDs, I found out that they had not been transferred to my name either. In addition, I found out that my social security number had been put in for the Tax ID number of the Trust, which I had NOT known of or approved. The Trust should have it's own Tax ID Number. After an hour of cooling my heels in a banker's cubical, he returned to tell me there were ""two forms that had to be signed by a branch manager"" in order to cash out the CDs. Unfortunately, he informed me, their branch manager would not return to the branch for two days. He would not give me the forms to take to another branch, or even tell me the names of the forms. It was all very suspicious.
I then went to the branch on Wm Cannon, but it took 2 hours to finally get the checks for the CDs, and the procedure there was nothing like what the banker at the S. Lamar branch described. They didn't even know anything about the ""two forms""! Curiouser and curiouser....The reason it took almost two hours to get the checks, was that nothing had been done to put the CDs in my name, and in fact, we had to apply for a Tax ID Number on the phone, to get everything correct before I could close the CD account.
I CANNOT recommend this firm. The attitude of the banker, branch manager and tellers at S. Lamar was that I was the dead rodent in their lemonade. Now is that the way YOU want to be treated by your BANK?
Pros: They give you free popcorn and coffee--WHOOPEE!
Cons: They make it up as they go, no continuity, very chaotic
more