Westamerica Bank is headquartered in SAN RAFAEL and is the 19th largest bank in the state of California. It is also the 219th largest bank in the nation. It was established in 1884 and as of March of 2023, it had grown to 621 employees at 79 locations. Westamerica Bank has a B+ health rating.
Extra Fees
For several years, there has been a charge of $2 a month to use my debit card. There is also a charge to use the internet to check balances. Now, they have added $2 a month to the statement for the copies of checks. The charges keep coming!
Letters That Are Important Take 8 Days To Get To Customers
I live in the town where West America is but if there is anything wrong with my account I do not get informed til 8 days after the fact, an in that time they charge OD and add fees they do not know how to go over an account that has had fraudulent charges, they forget about all the money that was in your account an act like they are really being good to you by backing off most of the charges and getting the money put back in but they do not pay any attention to the money you really had in there it just disappears and if the account is online they take it off of there as fast as they can so you have no time to copy the online pages an show them their mistake an believe me they are not going to admit you had any money There is another lawsuit against them for just this type of thing and you can bet I gtot on the band wagon, aI took all the info I had to the lawyer an they were amazed at the money I had lost because of their stupidity or just plain stealing call it what you want These attys are going all out this time and are going to make sure they return the money that technically would be called stolen, once you tell them and they ignore you it is theft I hope they shut them down this time I feel sorry for the employees you can see where they would like to check and help you but the manager will not let them the worst of these banks that I know of is the one in Clearlake CA they shoul audit every account in that bank and nake them give the people their money back They dodnt even eserve one star as far as Im concerned
Unfair To Employees
I wasnt to happy when they started to downsize and laid off a lot of good workers ,as a bank they also dont work with the cutomers fees even if it was not their fault they act as if they care and make everything sound good but it is not really how they make it sound they have grown but what good is that when customers are upset and leave to other banks some of thier staff is really nice the bank itself are pretty but needs a lot of upgrading they are way behing in their times.
Westamerica "Takes Over" Sonoma Valley Bank And Cannot Handle It
My bank was Sonoma Valley Bank, which WestAmerica took over on February 14, 2011.
I was out of the country for a month before and unbeknownst to me, my ATM cards, which I needed for travel, were no longer valid as of Feb. 14. There was not sufficient warning that these precious cards that we count on for travel would not be valid for the future. (WA Bank has since apologized in an email to me, but the situation was unacceptable, to be left without ANY ACCESS to funds.
I came home and went to the closest branch of WestAmerica Bank, in Lafayette, California, where they seem particularly disorganized, overly demanding with security measures and inept. The first time I went in, the teller had no idea how to find my SV Bank account to deposit my checks, even though WA Bank was supposed to do the transition. I left and drove to Sonoma , to do my banking.
Again today, I went to the Lafayette branch and had $31,000 to deposit. I also needed $2500 cash. They again fiddled around trying to find my new account information and said they would have to get the Fairfield office holding the SV Bank signature cards to fax mine to them before I could get any cash, BUT the Fairfield office's computer's were down. I had my valid CA driver's license with me but was told that it was useless, that plenty of people had fakes.
Then the teller added up my checks wrong, about $5000 short. Each of the checks I was trying to deposit was over the $2500 that I wanted in cash, but they didn't seem to know how to do the deposit. I took my checks and left and drove to Sonoma again, to the WA converted branch. I am now going to close all 3 WA Bank accounts and will find a new bank. Whew.
As constructive criticism, the employees need TRAINING if they are going to transition customers from one bank to another. WestAmerica is a disaster.
Data as of Q1 2023
Learn why bank health mattersHealth Grade Components
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| FDIC Certificate # | 3430 |
| Year Established | 1884 |
| Employees | 621 |
| Primary Regulator | FED |
| Profit Margin | |
|---|---|
| Return on Assets - YTD | 2.36% |
| Return on Equity - YTD | 32.2% |
| Annual Interest Income | $69.5MM |
| Assets and Liabilities | ||
|---|---|---|
| Assets | Q1 2023vs Q1 2022 | $6.66B$7.26B |
| Loans | Q1 2023vs Q1 2022 | $919.1MM$979.6MM |
| Deposits | Q1 2023vs Q1 2022 | $5.90B$6.41B |
| Equity Capital | Q1 2023vs Q1 2022 | $528.8MM$586.6MM |
| Loan Loss Allowance | Q1 2023vs Q1 2022 | $19.5MM$22.9MM |
| Unbacked Noncurrent Loans | Q1 2023vs Q1 2022 | $785.00K$915.00K |
| Real Estate Owned | Q1 2023vs Q1 2022 | $0$0 |
