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| - I was a fan of TCF Bank back in Illinois. They had them in the major grocery chains and they offered free online access and no fees back when the other banks were charging for that.
In Arizona, however, their branches are quite scattered and it's a pain to find any. This one in particular is a nightmare to get to due to its placement in Tempe Marketplace. And because there are no branches to be found, there are no free ATMs to use either.
As for the fees, they recently started hitting me for $9.95 a month with no explanation why. When I closed my account, citing the fees as the reason, the teller replied "You know, all of the banks will be charging fees soon." Yeah, I can see how important I was as a customer. I told him I bank with ING Direct, who charges no fees for anything, and he just replied "Oh."
And here's another kicker; if you opened your account in another state, you can't use any of their ATMs in any other state for free. Apparently TCF is a regional bank, despite having locations nationwide. Their systems aren't linked either; if I didn't have my account number with me, they would have to call the Illinois branch to get it, which was never a quick process. Sure I could have opened an account in Arizona, but what's the point of doing that when the bank is so inconvenient to use?
I'll stick with the truly free online banking through ING Direct (complete with free ATMs nearly everywhere) and stomach Chase for my local branch since they don't charge me anything to bank with them. They also have free ATMs and a lot of branches available nationwide.
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