The Chase for Good Personal Banking is Through, Hopefully for Good! April 2006 Update
Written: Nov 04 '05 (Updated Feb 13 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great accounts and service, lots of branches and ATMs in Chicago
Cons: none
The Bottom Line: Free checking with lots of branches and ATMs makes this the choice for personal checking in the Chicago metro area.
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| Saxguy's Full Review: JP Morgan Chase Bank |
Update April 2006: Bank one's online services have been migrated to the Chase web site. The transition was seamless. Chase's online site and products are even better than bank one's. One improvement I noticed is the ability to modify payment amount on recurring payments. Bank One couldn't do that.
So, I continue to be a big fan and recommend them highly for Chicago-area customers.
Below is the review I wrote last fall:
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Executive Summary: Free checking, lots of branches and ATMs, and great customer service online and off makes this the choice for personal checking and related accounts in the Chicago metro area.
The signs went up on October 24. All the Bank One locations in the Chicago area got banners; the ATMs got new fronts, the employees got new uniforms, all saying “Chase”. The business card from my commercial contact at Bank One now reads JP Morgan Chase.
So what has changed? Not a whole lot. I still have the same accounts that work the same way. I still use the Bank One web site for my checking and line of credit and one of my credit card accounts. I use the Chase site for my Chase Perfectcard account. I recently received a new ATM card with the Chicago skyline as background, CHASE on the front and JP Morgan Chase Bank, NA on the back.
I’ve had my existing account for over 20 years now. It’s migrated, a number of times, from a local bank, to another local bank, to First Chicago, to NBD, to Bank One, to Chase. Throughout, I’ve enjoyed excellent customer service at my local branch and over the phone. I did notice a drop in functionality from NBD/First Chicago when it first transitioned to Bank One, but Bank One consistently improved their online functionality so that it no longer is an issue.
I have a Premier One account, which is free if I maintain a combined balance of $25,000 in checking, savings and loan accounts. That account provides for free checking, pays a small amount of interest, currently 0.75%, a free safe deposit box, free checks, free money orders and cashiers checks. I have an outstanding home equity line of credit, two active credit cards and two inactive credit cards. I am able to access all these accounts through the Bank One web site, www.bankone.com and through the Chase web site, www.chase.com. I am getting my statements, which include images by .pdf download
The account also has free online bill pay, which I have used extensively and works great. Payments can be scheduled comfortably in advance of the due date. You do lose the float because bill pay charges your account when the money is sent. Chase collects the interest during the interim. I am currently using the BankOne online bill pay, but the Chase product is identical, to the point where the two sites have identical agreements. I can make payments directly from my checking account to Chase credit cards or lines of credit immediately without using bill pay.
Chase offers a free checking account as long as direct deposit is used for pay checks, and that seems to be the feature that most of the banks in the area are competing on. With direct deposit, there is no account or per check fee or fee for online bill pay. Without direct deposit, there is a $6 per month account fee and $4.95 per month bill pay fee. Either way, the statements do not include images, and there is a $1.50 fee for withdrawals from non-network ATMs. However, there are plenty of branches and Chase has more ATMs than any other bank in the area, including cash dispenser (non-deposit) ATMs at most Walgreens stores.
I want to expand on customer service. The branch I frequent has always had nice people. There are many of the same people in the branches that have had different uniforms, but they are still just as nice. I was able to schedule an appointment for a closing on our line of credit, with the banker coming out to the car to get my wife’s signature, as opposed to putting my wife into her wheelchair and bringing her in. Another time, I needed to get a relatively large sum in cash and time was of the essence. The branch manager at that location helped me do what was necessary once I let the operator know of the nature of the emergency. Bank One has also been helpful in making and collecting foreign drafts for me.Lastly, I use one of their (now Chase) branches in a grocery store to get the money orders I use for my occasional ebay purchases and they know me by name.
Their branches near my day job location were helpful in getting our employees’ checks (drawn on Bank One) cashed when First Midwest Bank reneged on a check cashing agreement without notice (see review linked below).
I’ve also had very good experience with the phone customer service staff. Most recently, I was able to get an increase in the withdrawal amount on my ATM card right away. Last night, I was on for about half an hour trying to get my Chase Mastercard set up for online download to Quicken. I had done it before, but I changed some parameter and it no longer worked. I talked to one person, exhausted her experience, then was transferred to another, who walked me through a number of different options until we found the one that worked. The cause of download not working was how I set up Quicken. Chase had nothing to do with it, but they helped solve it. The person did say that I would be better off continuing to download the accounts already set up with Bank One for now until the two web sites merged. He had no scheduled date on that. The Chase logo is showing on the Bank One web site, so I suppose that they are in no hurry.
In Chicago, Chase is the best option for a personal or family bank account. I hope it stays that way.
Thanks for reading. God bless!
You might be interested in some of my other reviews:
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Chase Perfectcard Rebate Credit Card
ING Direct Bank
GMAC Mortgage
T Rowe Price Online Brokerage
Prudent Speculator Investment Newsletter
Like a Monster Movie (on Safeco Home Insurance)
How to Trash Three Years of Hard-earned Goodwill in Two Poorly Planned Weeks(on DHL)
What Can Brown Do For Us? Not a Thing (on UPS)
ADP PC Payroll for Windows
Cedant Web Hosting
Recommended:
Yes
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