Bank of the West Reviews 133

Do not open account with this bank. I called my local branch and they said to call the 18004882265. I waited on hold for an hour, the lady I spoke with could not answer where $225 had gone to. I deposited 2576.00 which went on hold then the next day it was released. Then they put 2351.00 on hold, but the 225.00 is no where to be found. I got frustrated, and rightfully so. The supervisor, that was there was so rude. I asked to speak with her manager and she hung up.

I switched most of my money to be deposited in BoW and have a secured CC with them that is paid off monthly. I joined BoW because I sat down and they told me how they are a "bank" that helps people grow with them and see people not as "just a number". So after having great credit with them I applied for a car loan after a totaled vehicle, I felt secure knowing I would have many important products with them. Immediate denial with zero conversation. I was told that because my car loan would still show until the Insurance sent the payoff balance to them, they would note it so my loan would be reviewed propertly. I was then told they couldn't add notes after the fact. The only reason I even know it was denied is because I called 3x wondering why someone had not called me. HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE...period. Every call is 45-60 min wait time then it seems like the same lady answers and says they are short staffed. I got a fantastic car loan with a company that didn't see me as non human and I am switching all of my funds over to this new credit union. Buyer Beware

I linked a Paypal card to my empty bank of the west account. Paypal took .06 cents out and put it back. Bank of the west charged me 10 dollars for processing .06 cents then charged 35 dollars for overdraft. .06 cents just cost me 45 dollars

I've had my account there fore over two years now, and am pretty satisfied. The base service fee on the checking account just went up, so I'm not too happy about that. I DO enjoy the short teller lines at this local branch. You don't get that everywhere.

I went to my local branch to close my accounts, which took over an hour. I requested a written letter stating that I closed my account. They thought it was as a silly idea and told me not to worry that my account would close the next business day. It has been 2 weeks and my accounts are still open. I have written two letters to customer service through the app with no response and have tried to call, but am on hold until it finally rings only to be greeted by silence and then I am hung up on. I really do not know what to do at this point. Bank of the West is holding me hostage. Soon I will be charged for no active deposits. If you complain using social media they just block you and do not help.

Terrible. My husband and I have been with them since 18 for business/personal. Rose at the Holbrook, AZ branch is the only reason we have stayed this long She is GREAT, deserves a BIG raise. Every other part of the bank is useless. $9 to use an ATM that isn't theirs but guess what- they have 1 branch in a 4 hr radius. $12 monthly fee. And my absolute favorite banking feature is that they LOVE to your turn your cards off for suspected fraud for the most miniscule things. Tried to send my sister in law a small sum of money ($50), fraud. Went on an, outdoor day trip with my kids 3 hrs away where phone service is minimal, fraud. Spent 5 HOURS on the phone that day trying to get my cards back on while running out of gas in an area I wasn't familiar with. Alternating between turning car on and off because... it is 100 degree SUMMER in Arizona and I had 4 children under 10 in the car. The first time I got someone on the line (2 hr hold) they wouldn't turn my card back on bc I couldn't access the net to verify my charge amounts in order. There is no mobile net there. I called my branch, was told they don't have access to help me even though they DO know me. Fraud line again (1.5 hour hold) crying now, they said they turned it on. I advised I have to drive another 30 miles with no service to reach another gas station. He said he'd call back in 45 min to make sure we were okay. Card didnt work, no call. Called again, hour hold, they advised a branch was another 30 miles or so. I made it to the branch with my car literally sputtering. My husband was also making the 4 hr trip to bring cash by this point. When I walked into the branch to pull cash out I explained and the teller did not sympathize or apoligize. She simply said I "should have told the bank I would be traveling". We live in rural Arizona, a trip to home depot alone is 130 miles round trip. I am from a state that is 31 hours away from Arizona, 4 hours is hardly traveling for us. Bank of the West has turned our cards off 4 times in 6 months. Once outside of Death Valley during the Extreme heat wave in 21 while our motor home was broken down. They. Are. A. Nightmare. We pass anywhere from 60 to 100k through Bank of the West a year. We are local known business owners. Have never filed a fraud claim and have never had cards lost or stolen but they micromanage our money constantly. They seem to forget that we are the customers and have choices on other banks to use. The latest stunt on Halloween we drove 3 hrs to take kids to a Halloween event. Again we live rural, driving 3 hrs to do ANYTHING is very normal. Everything was fine until we got there. Apparently on our last gas fill they shut our cards down. When I tried to pay for the kids entry- all cards were declined. We had several thousand in the bank. It was 7 at night, branches were closed. Of course the 800 number tells you EVERY. TIME. There is a longer than anticipated hold which means you will hold anywhere from 1.5hrs to 3 hrs to speak. We luckily had gas to get back BUT I had to drive with kids crying in the car bc they sat 3 hrs ONE WAY excited about the event they missed. Painful. My husband met us halfway with a credit card (we keep in a safe and dont use) and we got a hotel for the night. The straw that broke the camels back though is this. 2 mos ago we recieved a considerable amount of money as backpay as we didn't take business pay during covid. We used what the business made to keep the business going. When we paid ourselves we decided to buy 2 things. A used/new to us camper and new to us car. We withdrew 8600 one day, the next day we withdrew 5400 and bought the car. We don't have loans, we own every vehicle and camper we have. This is not out of the norm for us as we strive to be debt free. I never ONCE had anyone call me to follow up about the problems or anyone ever say I'm sorry we inconvienced you for HOURS on multiple days BUT a few days ago I recieved a call from my local branch. They advised me that their "backend" asked them to call to find out why we withdrew the money on the two days and what did we do with the money. What? Unbelieveable. I took the opportunity to tell them everything in this review and that we were moving to the alternate bank in our area. There are only 2 banks within 100 mile radius of us and I finally made time to go switch our personaland business over. If you want a bank who acts like you shouldn't use your money and plays controlling games with your cash access while making you wait HOURS to speak to anyone with a pulse. THIS BANK IS FOR YOU. Otherwise ANY other bank will do. Better yet, bury it in the backyard or seal it in a wall! It would take less time and effort to get it out everytime you want to use it.

Received a loan for a motor home Aug 2 2021. I have not received plates or registration as of Oct 29th. No one will help me at customer service in this matter.

Worst bank ever. Hold times are ridiculous. I need assistance but can't contact anyone. Horrible customer service.

AVOID THIS BANK !!!!! They don't care about their customers, their wait hold times for a customer "service" rep are absolutely outrageous - almost an hour every time!!!, they aren't FDIC insured or back by any federal reserve and they WILL in fact charge you any fees anywhere they can. With all the wonderful online only banks available today who do NOT charge any fees whatsoever there is no longer ANY reason to deal with this corporation!

Bank of the West has the slowest, most unhelpful customer service on this earth. First If you call into their customer service center you will wait no less then 20 minutes to speak with a representative. Once you get a representative good luck understanding them. The original Issue is that my credit card tied to my checking account was hacked on the Playstation Network. Their fraud prevention sent me a text and I replied it was fraud. Here is where everything went south. Not only did they not stop the charge from going through they would not give me a provisional credit. Then they sent out a form for me to fill out and sign. I have dealt with numerous banks credit card services and never have I had to fill out an affidavit for a fraudulent purchase that was less then $200.00. Now that my card is no longer valid because it has been hacked they are supposed to issue me a new one for both my Wife and I. Well it has been well over 2 weeks and no new card. I can't imagine someone in today's age can wait that amount of time to be able to access their account without having to go to the bank. I am now on hold trying to find out why my cards are taking so long to get to me. I have been on hold for 38 minutes while typing this complaint. This is my 4th phone call in the two week period.These are just a few issues I have had with this bank in the last couple of months. The service at the branch locations here in Nebraska is even worse. I suggest you find a better bank. I know I am. Good Luck...

Awful.

Bank of the West on Brookhurst in Huntington Beach, CA, has staff so rude and indifferent to their customer's needs they should quit and go work for the TSA.

IMPOSSIBLE TO GET CASH BACK AT $25, ARDUOUS AT BEST and they don't honor the category promised at the 3% level of reimbursement.......also getting the cash back is a joke it's has to be ordered via outside vendor.....BEWARE OF THIS BANK CARD. I'VE only been given 1% cash back on a vendor that is under the category that should be the 3% and they still don't honor that vendor so I'm only getting 1% so I'm closing this account......Bank of the West SUCKS

Unfortunately, I had a deal with this bank like everyone else.
Personnel knows nothing about customer focus and service...

If I could give them a negative number of stars I would. I've been on hold with them a total of 6 hours through three phone calls trying to get through to them. I am livid. Now it's just a grudge match. As soon as I get a hold of anyone I'm going to close this account -- it's a business account with a sizeable amount of money in it. Awful awful awful.

Avoid Bank of the West at all costs. They are liars and thieves that do nothing to protect their customers. They stole from me and they will steal from you too. Avoid Bank of the West at all costs.

The complaint I have is the wait on the phone. I waited 1 hour and 15 minutes to take to a person. You can not complete everything on line! Somethings you have to talk to a live person. I've been with this bank for more than 25 years, and it has gone down hill. The drive through at my bank is closed now, the parking lot and building has garbage all over it. The ATM is constantly broke. No one is friendly at my bank on 9th street in Modesto, California. You guys need to get it together, hire more phone operators. Clean your banks up, get friendlier staff. The young lady who helped today on the phone was excellent. When my phone call was finally answered.

Bank of the West was a great bank with great customer support until 2-3 years ago, we have banked with them for 10-15 years and used to get great service. Now:
- It takes 45-90 minutes to get a person to talk to on customer support line and if they cannot help you the will hang up and not call you back. I was told they are incoming call center and therefore do not call customers back if 2 hours phone call is dropped.
- They make it easy to deposit your money but VERY DIFFICULT to get your money out of the bank
- They do not care if they are breaking Federal Laws and Regulations by their employee actions
- They have different limits on check holds and wire transfers that differ based on how “good” a customer you are
- They close accounts without notification
- Even if you have millions in their bank they do not treat customers with good service and respect
- They do not answer phones when at lunch and do not have a messages stating they are out to lunch
- They hide the phone numbers for Executive Offices
- If you want to buy a house with a large down payment that requires wire transfers BOW is NOT a bank that wants to make it easy for you to get your money out of.
- They point fingers at other departments and say they cannot help you because it is the other departments issues and they do not have a way of contacting the other department
- Branch Managers and Regional Bank Officers do not have full access to account information to assist customers
- The web site is hard to use and does not integrate with Quicken very well
- They do not provide sufficient training to their employees to serve customers with excellent service and respect and will flat out lie to you to get you to stop bothering them

This is absolutely the WORST bank ever!!! We had a RV Loan through them. They claimed numerous times that they did not receive our check. We then went into the branch to pay on our account and still received late charges. They were applying our payments to principal and not to our actual payment, even though we brought on our payment slip when paying. THEY HAVE RUINED our credit and even submitted it as a Charge off. It was not a charge off we paid the account in full so we no longer had to deal with them.

Sent a check to pay off an RV. Ten days later, still not paid off. Called, stated they never got the check. This is on 6/9/21. So I stop payment on the check, set up an online account and pay them directly from my checking account at my home bank. I get a payment confirmation and an email stating I made payment.
On 6/7/21, (2 days BEFORE they said they didn't have my check) they have the payment logged, and then reversed. Then they take the electronic payment out of my home account on 6/10/21. BUT my online account still says I owe them the pay off. I am now 7 phone calls in, countless hours on hold, it was assigned a work order and I faxed all the support documents to show I paid this. Here we are a MONTH LATER, still not resolved. DO NOT USE THIS BANK. WHAT A CLUSTER FK. AND THE BBB WILL HEAR ABOUT THIS. SHAMEFUL AND RIDICULOUS.
Update: I paid this off on 6/9/21.... I finally get the title on 7/27/21. What an absolute nightmare. Avoid this bank. They are notorious for this kind of poor service.

This Bank is a joke. I had a charity business account with Bank of the WEST. I had very few transactions as a small charity. 4 years later they want verification of my 501 c 3 status. Tax forms are public, paid on time. The mission statement hasn't changed. Gave what they asked for and four days later they closed the account with no notice. The manager LATISHA HERMENEZ, passed the buck and said it was their "back office" that closed the account. Stupid people that don't know how banking works, never do business with them.