Bank of the West - Petaluma, California

Bank of the West - Petaluma, California

March 30, 2006

THE LITTLE BANK THAT GOT TOO BIG.. Debora Hill I’m here to tell you a story. About a town in Northern California, and the little bank that serviced its’ citizens. When I was in high school in the late 1970's, my mother became infuriated with the impersonal service of the Bank of America and switched to Northbay Savings, a local bank. She was with them until she died in 2000, and became friends with Michael Tomasini, the Vice President. Eventually, Northbay Savings became The Bank of the West. I opened my own personal account with them in the mid-1990's. A professional writer has ups and downs in her financial life, mostly downs until she reaches her forties. When my mother became ill and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease Charmaine Boyd, a wonderful woman who worked at the main branch of The Bank of the West in Petaluma, assisted me with her financial arrangements. In 2004, when my business partner and I incorporated our business, Charmaine assisted us with the opening of a business account. In 2005 she obtained a short-term loan for the business, which was repaid ahead of schedule. There were many instances of her kindness and generosity during those years, and the reason Sandra and I chose the Bank of the West over her bank was due entirely to Charmaine and her caring attitude. In 2005 my identity was stolen through PayPal, and when I told Charmaine she informed me that not only was this common, there was an epidemic in-progress. The week my identity was stolen, Charmaine’s branch of the bank had half a dozen similar complaints – and that was one branch, of one bank. There were a few problems in getting it taken care of, and the system at the bank appeared to be more complicated than in previous years. But it was resolved, I moved on and didn’t think about that added bureaucracy again. Until February of 2006, when I considered getting a line of credit for my house. I started the process with a company in Southern California called American Home Equity. Everything seemed fine until the appraisal process began. I explained in detail, by email message, that an appraisal on my house MUST NOT be a drive-by, a popular appraisal method used now because it is cheaper than a complete investigative appraisal. But my master bedroom has been enlarged by ten feet, which doesn’t show from the outside of the house because the cathedral ceiling in the living room was removed to accommodate it. A drive-by appraisal would knock about $25,000 off the value of the house. After all this, no appraisal was ever done (that I knew about, since no one ever contacted me or came to the house), and I didn’t not get a line of credit from American Home Equity. A mysterious charge for $270 appeared on my bank statement, dated for the second day I’d begun negotiations with this company. I didn’t notice it until a few days later. I had given them my debit card information (if you are ever asked for this information in the spirit of ‘speeding the process along’ don’t ever consent – send a check. You’ll learn why later in this piece) to the company so the appraiser could be paid AFTER the appraisal was finished. When I telephoned the number that appeared with the charge – long distance, I might add – it turned out to be some kind of a debit clearing house called ATM Corporation of America. The charge was for a ‘drive-by’ appraisal, and they refused to remove the charge. So did American Home Equity, claiming the appraisal company, Centurion Appraisals, had done the appraisal with my permission. I talked to Charmaine about this, and asked that the charge be removed because I never authorized it. She told me to telephone the research center in Omaha, Nebraska. I did so, and was told I would be sent an affidavit to sign, and that the charge would be reversed immediately pending investigation. By the end of the week, no form had appeared in the mail and the charge had not been removed. I called again, got nowhere with anyone on the telephone, and by this time I was beginning to smell the stink of rot that was spreading through the Bank of the West. I asked Charmaine what I should do, and she told me it does take the research department awhile to investigate, but she didn’t know why I’d never received the affidavit to sign. Three telephone calls elicited three different answers regarding the reversal of the charge. One woman who answered the telephone told me, "Most of the operators here don’t know as much about these matters as I do, because I worked for the bank that merged with the Bank of the West." She was one of the ones who said the charge should have been reversed immediately. I told Charmaine that unless the matter could be resolved, I would have to move my accounts to The Exchange Bank, where Sandra and Tom had their personal account. If there is one thing to consider in a bank, it should be this – can you talk to someone at your branch (my mother left the Bank of America a long time ago and moved to Northbay Savings because she could no longer have a local contact – all calls went directly to that black hole known as a telephone call center). The Exchange Bank is locally owned and can never be acquired by a larger bank, because 51% of it is owned by The Doyle Trust. Charmaine and the District Manager, Don Mercer, attempted to discover what had gone wrong. I received a telephone call from a man named Ryan at the Omaha center who attempted, somewhat ineffectually, to explain what had happened. An investigator (that sounded like a fancy name for clerk) named Jamie Weiscowitz I probably spelled his name wrong, since no one would spell it for me and when he sent me letters, he signed them Jamie W. To keep me from know his last name) denied my claim BEFORE sending me an affidavit, and that’s not legal. So the claim was re-opened, after I sent a letter to Omaha pointing out that what their ‘investigator’ had done was illegal. But when I asked Ryan why the claim was denied the first time he didn’t answer; he told me that a ‘second’ claim had been opened. It was confusing, and it never got any better. I waited, and was told the money would be put back into my account. It never was, and about two weeks later I telephoned Charmaine to tell her. She told she that she’d already been informed that the claim had been denied again. And here is the information I believe every consumer needs to hear – the representative at the call center said that once I gave my debit card information to American Home Equity, I gave them tacit permission to charge me anything they wanted to. Now, think about this, gentle readers...you want to order something online or by telephone. Let’s say it’s a washing machine and dryer from a large manufacturer. Or let’s say it’s a website that sells the washer and dryer for the best price. You order your merchandise, and when it arrives it isn’t what was advertised, or what you ordered. You return the merchandise, but the merchant refuses to return your money. Or, the merchandise is what you ordered, you’re happy with it, but when you get your bill, you’ve been charged twice the price advertised. According to the Bank of the West, the seller can do this – and there’s nothing you can do about it. Nothing your bank will do about it. If that sounds right to you, better stop buying anything unless you use cash or a credit card. Credit card companies usually back their customers in disputes; according to the Bank of the West, banks don’t back their customers on debit card disputes. I closed my personal and business accounts, and went to the Exchange Bank, where new ones were opened. When I asked our new ‘Personal Banker’, Chris Stewart, about that statement from the investigation center, he was certain someone along the line had gotten the wrong message. It was absolutely impossible for a bank to take that line. Well, I have no idea what actually happened, but I do know I was charged $270. For nothing – no product and no service, and there was no one to assist me in rectifying being cheated by an unscrupulous company. The money was a minor amount; the underlying implications were not. In a world where there are so many people waiting to cheat us, consumers must search out and stay with those who will assist rather than hamper us. Note the warning signs in time, and you won’t be out $270. Or $270,000...

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