West Coast Bank provided a modest operating line of $500k for my company for more than 7 years. We were never late on payments, we seldom used the line and our AR and WIP were always at least 5 times more than what we owed to the West Coast Bank. When the recession began in 2008 most banks tightened lending to small businesses and it became clear that the lending officers at WCB knew that we would not be able to find another bank to provide an adequate business line. At the end of 2010 WCB raised our fees by more than 1000 percent and also raised the interest that they charged us for using the operating line. The fees for renewing our line for only 9 months was $23K and this was during a time when the Federal Reserve was providing WCB nearly free money. The equivalent interest rate required by WCB was in excess of 30 percent! WCB simply attempted to extort money from my company because they were convinced that we had no alternative. Fortunately WCB was not our only alternative and several banks were willing to provide us a business line at very reasonable fees and interest rates. The bank we selected was Pioneer Trust Bank which provided a business line of $650K with no fees and at 6 percent interest. The people at WCB are nothing short of loan sharks and will take advantage of small businesses if they think they can get away with it. Also note that WCB has been on financially shaky ground for the last couple years and was recently under investigation by the FDIC. Stay clear of this bank!
more