Since we've moved in to our home in Massillon, we've been getting mail solicitations from First Merit Bank, with a branch located just one block from us. The first few I discarded, since I was tied to Citizens Bank with the truck loan. After July (the final truck payment), I did at least glance through the flyers when they came, but I had no reason to leave Citizens. I was able to do all of my regular banking transactions through the local Charter One branch, although customer service with Citizens had been less than satisfactory (in my opinion) since I was dealing with them exclusively over the phone for any kind of account maintenance issues.
This past week, another First Merit flyer came in the mail, only this time it happened to arrive in a pile of mail that also contained a notice of Citizens' new policy change for each of our "free" accounts with them. Turns out, they're instituting a $4.99 per month per account maintenance fee unless certain criteria are met as far as account balances, transactions, etc. We will probably not meet those criteria most of the time, so it's kind of insulting to me to say "you don't have enough money with us, so we're going to take some away from you every month so you have even less."
I went to First Merit yesterday with the family, and spent around an hour with a very personable agent. We set up two "Reality Checking" accounts and a savings account (which will actually be accruaing an almost 1% APY, as opposed to costing me $4.99 each month), which will replace the accounts we intend to close at Citizens before the new policies take effect in December. It was also nice to know I will be banking with a locally owned and operated institution, based out of Akron and serving the Northeast Ohio area (Citizens is owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland). In addition to supporting the local economy, this will be nice in a few years when we go to look for a home loan again.... since I've sworn off of national banks after our very impersonal experience with Countrywide!
How much is my business worth to Citizens? I'd say abuot $5 per account per month... How much is Citizens worth to me? Certainly not $180 a year! I don't think they'll be upset to loose my meager accounts to a local bank....
