Last week, I talked about the obstacles that I encountered when I changed the name of my editing business. One such obstacle involved dealing with my bank.
In this post, my bank shall remain nameless in order to protect it. However, I am fairly certain that what you are about to read at least seems to apply to most, if not all, megabanks in the United States. (I cannot speak about “small-town” banks, as I do not deal with any. Perhaps you deal with one; if you do, I would love to hear about your experience with them in the comments to this post.)
When I first set up my business three years ago (under its old name), I set up a business bank account. I did so at the branch of my bank (Branch A) that is close to the condo building in which I live. The people there were very nice and helpful and patient (patience is essential when dealing with a new business owner who is still learning the ropes). So I was off and running.
The only problem with Branch A is that it was located (and still is located) right at a very dangerous intersection in my city. I’ll spare you the details of the intersection, but I will say that the manager of Branch A once remarked that she had witnessed several accidents that took place there. I personally have had more than one close call at this location as well. So after a number of years, I became fed up and said to myself that I could not do business at a bank where I had to practically risk my life to travel to and from there.
I then found myself at Branch B of my bank, the next closest branch to my home–some distance away but can still be driven to in ten minutes or so. Branch B is less attractive and less professional-looking than Branch A. When I realized that this was the bank at which I was going to do business, I sighed, but kept thinking about the death trap intersection next to the former, nicer branch.
Branch B is the bank where I closed my business bank account that was in my old name and moved all of the money to a new account that was created with my new name. The process took months (I believe I wrote about this in my last post) and I dealt with a mixture of people. One woman, a teller, whom I remember was particularly unpleasant–not nasty per se, but not nice or professional at all, in my opinion. The manager of Branch B was definitely the most helpful of their staff. She had a strong personality, which always intimidates me, but she definitely knew what she was doing and thanks to her, now I have a new banking account in my new business name.
Fellow editors, how have your dealings with your banks been?