Quote:
Originally Posted by MolsonExport
I left CIBC half a lifetime ago when they behaved assholish towards me when I tried moving my account from Montreal to Vancouver (where I was then based). Walked across the street to the RBC, and been with them ever since (3 mortgages, many mutual funds and RRSP accounts, RESPs, etc., etc. over the years). I would not say that RBC is amazing: it is very mediocre at the very best. But there is something rotten about CIBC.
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My first account as a child was with CIBC. Probably because my mom banked with them, which was probably because her parents did. I seem to remember her or my dad having an account at the Bank of Nova Scotia though when it was still branded that way, as well as a credit union.
When I was in my early teens mom set up me and my sister at Canada Trust. They became my every day bank -- everyone recall that their ATMs were branded as "JohnnyCash" and he did commercials? I eventually closed up the CIBC account. Then TD 'merged' with CT, and slowly everything good about CT evaporated.
My best experience was with ING. I
finally opened a savings account with them in my early 30s after frequently being pestered by email, then a chequing account, then a TFSA and small line of credit I rarely used for a long time. Scotia moved in and became their overlords, keeping the brand (now Tangerine) and most of the good things about the bank, but they are the boss. I kept some stuff live at TD for a long time but finally closed those accounts 5 years ago.
I now have multiple accounts at Tangerine, Scotia, and RBC, the latter which I only opened because they were within walking distance of where I had been living if I needed cash from an ATM. Tangerine's online services are the best, IMO, but I find RBC to be the "slowest" when it comes to making transactions... I have had to play the debt roulette game over the past 16 months, moving money among accounts and between banks. Twice RBC has charged me for being overdrawn, for doing transactions that would have been just fine for other banks; they were kind enough to reverse some fees the first time it happened and I questioned it with proof, but no dice on the second instance. When my debt clears soon (selling a marital home) I will pay off what I owe to RBC and be done with them. I may keep the credit card just to have a Visa because the one I have has no fees, but they'll get no other business from me.
And this bullchit about "holding" deposits is a major pain. I've had friends with money from house sales -- that were paid into an account directly by their real-estate lawyers -- get told they can't immediately access the funds, which they were planning to use to pay their own debts. I've learned to make transfers between banks using Interac e-Transfers to get around that issue, but then I often need to do it multiple times given the transfer limit. I'll be quite glad when the debt dance is done, but I do wonder how long the banks will allow that loophole to exist. How dare we have access to our own money when we want it!
JOHNNYCASH Money Machine commercials from the mid-1980s:
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