10/18/2017
I went to open one of their 'hassle free' accounts back in June. I was told that as long as I have 1 direct deposit and 5 transactions then I am able to qualify for the $200. I asked while I was there, does 5 transactions include me depositing cash into the account? I was told yes, all transactions qualify, putting money in, paying bills, using the debit card. I told Cindy, the lady that was helping me set up the account that I never use debit cards, I always use my credit card and then pay it off in full at the end of each month because I get cash back. She told me that that's fine and that paying bills with it qualifies as a transaction.
A little less than a month later I had met all of the qualification that I had been told about so I went in to the branch to ask when the $200 would be deposited and to make sure that there was nothing else that I had to do. I was told that "as long as you had the direct deposit and the 5 transactions then no their is nothing else that you need to do. It should be deposited to you in 60-90 days.
After about 75 days I went back into the branch to make sure nothing was wrong and that I had met all of the requirements. The teller asked me if I had had 1 direct deposit. I said yes. She asked me if I had 5 transactions, I said yes. She looked at my account and said "yeah you should be good, if it hasn't happened at the 90 day mark then call us."
Today is 90 days and I called to ask if there had been a problem. Cindy was on the phone with me this time. She looked into my account and said that I had qualified with the direct deposit but not with the transactions because I did not use my debit card 5 times. I told her that I had used the account to pay my credit card off. She looked more into it and said "yeah bill pay is supposed to qualify. Let me call you back"
After a few minutes, she called back and said that because I didn't go onto key online banking and schedule automatic payments through there then it didn't qualify as bill pay.
None of this was told to me when I signed up. I put money in, I paid my bills, I had direct deposits, I even asked for clarification multiple times to be sure that nothing was wrong and that I was meeting qualifications, and everything seemed fine until the very end when she said that I actually had needed to pay my bills in a different way.
I asked her if I would be able to close the account and open a new one to try to qualify now that I was told the real qualifications, she said no. I'm very upset and dissatisfied about this. I did everything that I was told to do. I even went in to make sure that there was nothing else that I needed to do. And yet they still didn't clarify all the requirements with me until after it was too late. Going in tomorrow to close my account. Never banking with them again. I feel scammed and lied to. ~Allison
bank
atm
mortgage lender