UPDATED DEC 2004: I have banked with Chevy Chase Bank since 1993. Overall it has been a good experience. They have lot's of branch locations spread all over Maryland, Virginia, and DC. In addition they have an ATM in most every Safeway and/or Giant. Having access to ATM's that are owned by your home bank, and that are close by, is very nice, -it means you are not charged $1.50 for getting your own money out of the Bank.

In addition, the people working at these banks seem very nice, although sometimes I think they spend too much time chit chatting with customers. I wish they would be friendly, but quicker.

Their online bank has under-gone a couple re-inventions. And brother, have I lived through both of them.... they messed up my Quicken software register when they had a system problem and sent me a bogus Quicken file that scrambled my register statements (bogus dates). But so far their latest online system seems very good, better than most. I think they may have finally learned their lessons. What make their online system so nice is that is seems to work in "real time". Most other on-line banking systems have a day or more delay in posting various type of tranaction information, but Chevy Chase's on-line site updates things like "account transfer" info instantly. I have used ALOT of on-line systems, and Chevy Chases is near the top in usability.

The only real down side to Chevy Chase is that they offer horribly low interest rates... well below 1% on savings and checking accounts! You can get slightly higher rates but they require you to jump through some hoops, which really doesn't increase the rate that much anyway.

Because the rates are so low at Chevy Chase I have decided to open accounts with online banks www.statefarmbank.com and www.ingDirect.com where they are paying MUCH HIGHER interest rates on basic accounts (State Farm= 1.35% checking and 1.75% Savings... INGDirect.com = 2.25% Savings) Compare that to Chevy Chase where their interest rates are so low they have just about stopped posting them on their web site!!!

Another thing I have done is opened an www.ingDirect.com account and "electronically linked" my chevy chase account (Check out http://www.ingDirect.com for more info). What this means is that I have my local Chevy Chase account for the local banking services that I need, BUT I can quickly shuffle money electronically to my much higher interst bearing accounts in StateFarmBank.com and ingDirect.com.

Here is how Chevy Chase compares:

Negative:
--Dismally low interest rates compared to online banks.
--Complicated schemes to get higher interest rates.

Positive:
++Free first box of checks.
++Paper and online bank statements.
++Very good online banking system.
++Pretty good customer service.

Be sure and compare Chevy Chase Bank to on-line banks like www.StateFarmBank.com and www.INGDirect.com where you can get higher interest rates on your checking and savings without jumping through a lot of hoops....

Sincerely,
Keith


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