There are so many scams out there, all coming from unexpected places, featuring large companies. My opinion is that it corresponds to who is in power. I think that even areas of white collar crime that get prosecuted are purely cosmetic. I don't not think, for instance, that Enron will actually be punished for all of their wrong doings. For that reason, I think all of us who fall into the poverty, low income or lower middle-class classifications had best be doubly watchful and protective of one another.
I am, accordingly, adding my voice to the many others warning against doing business with Compass Bank. If you are lucky enough to be researching a possible relationship, boogy now. If you are already in one, flee as quickly as possible.
My experience with Compass Bank entails having had multiple unauthorised Internet transactions transpire. This drained my checking account and resulted in over $1,000 worth of NSF charges. I finally got the Internet companies to credit back my checking account. Compass Bank, however, resisted crediting the NSF fees for so many different reasons, it staggers the imagination. One was that since the companies had recredited my account, it wasn't fraud and therefore not reimbursable. Another was because I couldn't remember a name of someone I had talked to. (They keep their own log of conversations, much as Richard Nixion recorded everything.)
Every experience with Compass Bank has been a nightmare, from trying to talk to bank officials at branches to unanswered emails, faxes, and phone rudeness. Talking to a bank official at a branch has taken hours, from delays for not signing the roster, to the invention of lines I failed to wait in. I arrived at one branch at 3:45 PM, one day, hoping to retrieve my official faxes of official forms. (They weren't there.) The doors were locked, though the posted hours stated that closing was at 4PM.
I have been put on the phone with supposed conference calls to Phoenix and Alabama, that have been the very embodiment of lengthy who's on first jokes. I was told at the end of one such phone call that I would not be reimbursed, because the deadlines for their forms was past, forms that they not only didn't mail to the correct address but somehow kept forgetting to fax to the bank, blaming it on a phantom fax thief.
I have never successfully changed my address, though I have done it by certified mail, fax, email, letters to the General Counsel, etc. I finally think I have gotten most of my money back, which makes protests to the FCC, etc., moot. I have not successfully closed my account yet, though believe me I have tried. Their "rules" require that one contest fraudulent activity or errors by mail on the bank's very own, notarized forms. The double bind is that they will not mail you these forms.
This bank endorses lying from the very bottom to the very top. It's behavior is a mixture of ineptitude and malice. Look for a physical address anywhere on your bank documents. Such addresses do not exist, except with the SEC. Letters, posted on the Internet, to the SEC, by Compass's General Counsel are examples of how to write in the English language and say nothing. Even the posted email link is weird.
Beware, and flee this organization ASAP. Their CEO received $3.1 million last year in compensation. The board is composed of aging, Jim Crow, Alabama red-necks, who all receive about $300 per month and an additional $3,000 a month for being on the board. No farm subsidies for these guys, they can survive quite well by ripping off customers.
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