That's true. Small local banks are in pretty much the same position. They can be excellent - you're in the same area and they know you. It's the giant chain banks that are the worst offenders. The risk with small local banks is consolidation, they can be bought out by larger ones or BoA et al, pretty easily, as soon as they start doing well.
I have run into people who had your husband's idea before - devil you know versus the unknown. I got burned on the big banks in Chicago in 1980 when I went trying to get an account and didn't like the way the giant ones treated me as insignificant - even when I had a good job! They were rude and hidebound, rules-crazy, wouldn't lift a finger for an individual. I had no idea the depth of corruption behind it but got the impression they didn't even talk to people who had less than $100,000 to put in the bank.
So I got disgusted and looked for a smaller one, which turned out to be less rude, and never trusted the big ones again. That's some of why the news about the giants has no emotional shock. From how rude they were in the 1980s I knew they had to be getting their money some other way than through customers.
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winterfish
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Date: 2012-05-07 04:52 pm (UTC)I have run into people who had your husband's idea before - devil you know versus the unknown. I got burned on the big banks in Chicago in 1980 when I went trying to get an account and didn't like the way the giant ones treated me as insignificant - even when I had a good job! They were rude and hidebound, rules-crazy, wouldn't lift a finger for an individual. I had no idea the depth of corruption behind it but got the impression they didn't even talk to people who had less than $100,000 to put in the bank.
So I got disgusted and looked for a smaller one, which turned out to be less rude, and never trusted the big ones again. That's some of why the news about the giants has no emotional shock. From how rude they were in the 1980s I knew they had to be getting their money some other way than through customers.