Ok Bank But No Customer Service

I have been banking with EVB for over a year. The reason I chose them was because it was a local bank and offered a great (1+% - ok not a great rate unless you compare it to other types of bank accounts, including "high yield" money market or CD rates) on balances in the account for their internet focused account. But throughout my relationship with them it has been a comedy of errors and poor service that has me contemplating a different local bank. The first issue was when the teller set up my account they put my full name on the account, full first name, full middle name, full last name. I was willing to dismiss this, but I've never had someone put my full name on any account, ever, and I've worked with lots of banks.

Then the teller ordered my first checks without mentioning there was a nearly $30 fee for those checks. When I opened my first statement I nearly went through the roof! I wrote the bank telling them my issue and there was silence, no acknowledgement of my complaint, no call, no letter, nothing.

One of the features they offer with this account is the ability to transfer funds to other accounts. I pay most of the family bills through my wife’s account at another bank so I need to transfer funds there on a regular basis. The one problem is that the feature at EVB only works about 50% of the time. I have made several attempts to solve this issue and a friendly customer service person over the phone finally told me that they have to restart services on their servers on a nearly daily basis and that’s the reason it fails at times. Hmmm, my confidence in this bank is waning even more.

My last attempt to work on this transfer issue was via an email to their customer service. I sent the e-mail over a week ago, and guess what… no answer still. I guess customer service isn’t one of their hallmarks. But this is a “community bank” I thought that is why people want to work with local banks, the personal service, the responsiveness to issues, their willingness to attend to the customer, something lost with many bigger banks.