I‘ve asked the question before on this board: why does anyone still do business with Wells Fargo? I personally know TWO people who still bank with them. One has a loan with them so I guess he’s locked in. But how much longer can a bank survive without growth and new customers?
This article from the SF Business Times says it all.
Read the whole thing HERE.
They’ve been being sued by consumers through my whole adult life. The mortgage suits were bad enough. Now they’ve created fictional accounts and have been suspended from doing business with the State of California. Read about it HERE.
I grew up in a family that thought BofA was the next thing to God, but after I got out of school and had my own money I discovered credit unions and never looked back. I particularly recommend Coast Central.
If any of you are still doing business with this criminal enterprise, please tell me why. I’d love to know.
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Have you noticed a strange trend toward commercials that glorify obnoxious behavior? They used to show shiny happy people smoking the Marlboros or whatever so that you, the viewer, would be motivated to emulate that behavior. Now they show jerks.
Take that National Car Rental ad with the boorish guy who doesn’t want to talk to people and thinks control is sexy. It may be, but he’s not. The followup ad in which he’s talking to cars about why he’s not picking them adds to his cred as an MCP but I don’t see how it’s selling car rentals. That is the point, isn’t it?
How do you like the Experian ads that encourage folks to show their “credit swagger” which apparently excuses all kinds of asshole behavior. If any bozo or bozette has the nerve to put their feet on MY desk or shines a laser pointer in MY face, they’ll be given the bum’s rush fast. Of course I’m not a loan officer, so I don’t have to put up with jerks on a daily basis.
Civility in business will never go out of style. Trust me on this.
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When I saw that strange-looking letter, I knew it meant trouble. Here was a letter from BOTH North Valley Bank and Tri-Counties Bank, which has absorbed them. At the bottom were TWO signatures, one from each bank. When I worked at Pearl Harbor, the CO used to say, “Split responsibility is no responsibility.” The Old Man was right.
The letter was dated October 3 and notified me that as of October 25, a new servicer, Tri-County, ‘will be collecting your mortgage payments from you” and exhorted me to send all payments due on or after October 25 to TriCounties Bank at a Chico address. I called both numbers to find out that to expect. My mortgage payments are automatically deducted from my Coast Central account. I called Coast Central and both of the numbers on the letter. No one knew anything except that one person thought that TriCounties would be sending me a letter, maybe even telling me what my new account number would be. Nothing came.
I called Tri-Counties again and was told that all the information was in the packet that was sent to me. I explained that no packet had been sent. Finally they told me to visit the TriCounties branch after November 1. On the morning of Monday , November 3, my mortgage payment cleared! Now I could avoid a useless trip to Tri-Counties, right? Oh no, I called and was told by a nice young lady that I had to come in, anyway. I obediently drove to their branch, which was having the signage changed. It turned out the only reason for making me come in was to pick up the stupid packet, WHICH THEY COULD HAVE MAILED TO ME.
Now that I know Tri-Counties is in such dire financial straits that they cannot afford first-class postage and an envelope, I will be following their fortunes with renewed interest.
Meanwhile, a Friend of the Blog filed the following:
“I tried to simply cash a small $260 check (usually $300) from my wife, done monthly , mostly in McKinleyville’s CCCU. Both of us have an account at CCCU. I told the teller my member #. I assume somewhere on their screen it would show that I have 10Kin checking alone. I have lived at the same home address with the same phone number for 43 years and have been a member of CCCU for decades. My CDL was expired and the clerk was not going to let me cash the check without an unexpired CDL. When I pointed out much of the above, I was told that next time I would need an unexpired CDL. I asked the teller to ask management why? Are they law enforcement? What next, you need to be a currently licensed driver? I have both a current license and a CA ID card. I have never had a point against my license since I started driving at age 15 1/2. DMV is using the same photo for both. My credit score is well above 800. I have a VISA with CCCU. I have two monthly deposits from CAL-PERS and Social Security into this CCCU’s checking. DMV never asked for the expired license. I held onto it thinking it would be a valid Government issue photo ID- not at CCCU. What a tale of woe.”
What a tale of woe, indeed. Whatever happened to recognizing your customers?
I drop into Tasty Tacos (in Cutten, on Walnut) every week and when Tom announces “Julie, you’re order’s ready,” all’s right with the world. The banks should be learning from small business. Boy, should they.
Dr. Eschker and his dedicated group have published their Economic Index for September. They found that in September Hospitality, Lumber, Employment , and manufacturing orders were up, while Home Sales, Retail, unemployment claims, building permits and “help wanted” advertising were down.
Just returned from the Bay Area and found this message in my in-box. Came as quite a shock since I closed my PayPal account a year ago, mostly because I was tired of all the emails and warnings about mischief with PayPal accounts. All they wanted was for me to update my credit card details. Yeah, right.
IF you receive something like this, go to the PayPal website and click the “Contact Us” button. PayPal will ask you to forward the bogus message to them so they can investigate.
The world is full of dreadful people, isn’t it?
A Silicon Valley one-percenter is proposing to split the state six ways. Guess which part will end up with all the money? It ain’t us.
Meanwhile, on September 18th, a referendum in Scotland will determine whether Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom or goes independent. The similarities between the Scottish situation and the putative State of Jefferson are interesting to compare.
MONEY: Scotland is a rich country due to the North Sea oil reserves. They can leave the Brits behind and still survive economically. (Scotland can already afford to educate its university students for FREE.) A State of Jefferson on the other hand will end up as the Appalachia of the West. Other than tourism and weed, which will be selling for pennies after legalization, what do we have? Oysters. Good oysters, but still…Every candidate for office in Humboldt County in the last twenty years has run on a platform of bringing jobs to the county. Where are those jobs? I must have missed something.
HISTORY: The Scots were an independent people until 300 years ago with their own culture and language. ( To this day the average American has about as much chance of understanding a Scot speaking what is now is considered the Scottish dialect as he would have understanding someone from Newfoundland.) 300 years ago there were no “white” people in “Jefferson”. The State of Jefferson would have the highest proportion of Native Americans of any area in the State. Separating from California would not enhance their economic situation one bit. If it would, tell me how. Yes, they would carry more clout locally because everyone else will be broker. But will their situation really improve? Will anyones?
POLITICS: The Scots have long been more “socialist” than the rest of the UK. Within recent memory they were still sending a Communist or two to Parliament every year, usually from Glasgow. The factories and tenements of Glasgow were the inspirations for Karl Marx’s Capital. Glasgow is the only place where I ever had a cabbie return a tip because good Marxists don’t believe in tipping. The Scot’s desire to be free of “imperialist state” of the UK has deep roots and may well carry the day. Politics in “Jefferson” is more chaotic. With a 20% participation in the recent elections, it seems clear that most Jeffersonians (is that what they call themselves?) are not participating in politics because they’re hopeless or too stoned. This paves the way for the Tea Party or other fringe groups to fill the vacuum. Not a pretty sight.
Anyway, September 18th should be interesting. If the Scots opt for independence will they be part of NATO? Will they adopt the Euro? What will happen to the North Sea oil, in which the Norwegians also have an interest? It’s been a long time since our states changed boundaries. In November, will the divide-and conquer strategy of the SV plutocrats win out over the welfare of the rest of us? Stay tuned. And for God’s sake register to vote.
Umpqua Bank’s consolidation plans do NOT include any Humboldt County banks, a spokesperson for the Bank confirmed. As we reported recently, several other California branches of Umpqua are looking at closure, so this is a vote of confidence in the Humboldt economy. At least I’d like to see it that way.
Ms. Laura Beshire also corrected my error in naming Utah as a state in which Umpqua does business- should have said Idaho. Much thanks to her.
Now everybody clean up your Fourth of July debris and get back to work. Wish we had more holidays during the good weather.
I tend to think of Umpqua as a small, local bank but it’s not. Since the early 90’s it has grown from six branches to 364, including those that were acquired from Sterling Bank in April of this year. They have 5000 employees in branches in Washington, Oregon, California , Nevada and Utah and are looking to open more, while consolidating for efficiency.
How do they distinguish themselves from all the other banks and credit unions seeking your money? By a folksy approach that includes including displays of local products in its branches, and handing out chocolates with each cash withdrawal. Each Umpqua branch has a telephone direct to Ray Davis, the president, whose approach to growing the bank has been to build a $22B bank while still operating small.
Umpqua has four branches in Humboldt now but has announced that 27 branches will be closed before the end of the year- 13 in Washington and seven each in Oregon and California. No specifics available yet, but Umpqua has attracted the attention of no less a news source than the Economist. That’s bigtime.
I usually deal with credit unions, with the exception of my mortgage with NVB, so I have no experience as an Umpqua customer. Do you deal with them? What have been your experiences? We’d love to hear from you.