Voting with your wallet works if there are viable alternatives. Where are you going to take your business? Bank of America? JP Morgan? There are only a handful of large banks in the US and they all offshore and they are all guilty of shenanigans. Welcome to globalism where the elites send jobs overseas to lower wage nations and pocket the difference. You really can't vote with your wallet when it's an industry wide problem.

Why do you need a big bank? I use a community bank; my kid uses a credit union. Your deposits are insured and small banks usually cover ATM fees (though I don't use much cash any more) s there's really no reason not to use a small bank. Plus if you have a problem you can usually call someone and get it fixed immediately!

Having multiple conveniently-located branches, at potentially broader operating hours, where you can talk to a real person is one significant reason.

Usually at the big banks the "real person" won't have the discretion to actually fix your problem.

>Usually at the big banks the "real person" won't have the discretion to actually fix your problem.

This is why I closed my Wells Fargo account after 10 years. It used to be that you could walk into a bank, sit down with a banker, and have them solve any problem you had. Now you walk into the bank, sit down with a banker, and the banker picks up a phone and dials 1-800-WELLSFARGO for you and hands you the phone. It's absolutely insane. I switched to a local small bank that knows me by name and can fully complete the process for their entire range of services within a single office, face to face, by email, or direct office line at any time.

Yep. I still use my credit union from college, and get pestered asking why I won't switch. Knowing I can call them from anywhere in the world at any time and get most issues resolved by a person in their office is a huge plus. As is reciprocal deposit and withdrawal. Absolutely no reason for me to switch.

My credit union has almost everything a “real bank” offers. They have a network where you can do banking operations through many other credit union offices and ATMs are free to use across nationwide CUs. If I have to use a non CU ATM I get refunded the charge.

About the only thing I miss is the ability to send foreign wires. For that Discover bank online checking does that.

It’s honestly a much better experience that when I had my old WF account.

And as a non-American, I like banking through a credit union that doesn’t have any US operations.

Depends how big you need your bank to be to do business with them.

There are plenty of viable alternatives if you don’t demand your bank to be one of the 5 largest.

There are enough fintech startups to choose from.

The only explanation for the continued usage of consumer banks that provide sub par service and pay paltry near-zero interest rates is the lack of basic financial education. The majority of people just don’t know any better and think switching banks is a pain. In reality it takes 15 min to open an account online.

Or if you want lots of help switching, a local credit union will probably do that, too.

I was in a branch of my (not very large, so not really expected to be multilingual) credit union here in Seattle about a month ago and a branch employee was walking a middle-age-appearing couple through switching their automatic debits and direct deposit and such to the account they’d recently opened. And he was doing it in German.

A credit union without any offices in New York City is a good way to protect you against the organisms described here:

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-confessions-of-judgm...

I"ve had two separate mortgages sold without my consent to Wells Fargo. It's been pretty difficult to avoid them.

Plus any companies that use Stripe are sending business to WF.

It's tough to close your accounts if your account is a mortgage. Mortgage account closing requires either lots of money or refinance, and a refinance depends on interest rates of the present day being lower than when you took the original. Finally, it costs thousands to refinance. Add to that, WF gives an interest rate discount for opening a checking account and setting up direct crediting of the mortgage monthly premium.

Also, you have very little control over who services your mortgage. I got my mortgage through a regional bank, but then it was sold almost immediately to Chase, who at a minimum collects servicing fees from it.

I do vote with my wallet, if by moving job overseas, wf can provide better service for me, I will use them.

How exactly having an overseas call centre is better service? It’s hideous service.

Since American Express in the UK outsourced their live chat to the Phillipines and India, I’m not even bothering with using it.

By reducing the operating expenses, they could, for example lower fee or increasing interest rate.

Also worth noting that companies that use Stripe are sending business to WF.

I’ve been planning to leave WF for a long time, it was just painful to do it. But recently got the motivation and am making that change with a job shift.

Never got one in the first place FTW.