I was with First Calgary, and the technical issues they had as well as customer service issues were terrible. Like all financial institutions, they are good when you are just doing some regular banking. However when a problem comes up- you are SOL.
One example, their online system is often down. Last fall I was buying something from a CPer. I went to send an Interac transfer from First Calgary/ Connect First and the system said it failed, try again later. I ended up sending the transfer from another bank. Turns out the transfer went through via email; however I wasn't informed nor my account debited for an entire week. Fortunately the CPer was honest and didn't cash both transfers. However if they had auto-deposit, I would have been in trouble.
Another time my wife's debit M/C had a charge from some place in Florida. She went to dispute the charge, and was told they would look into it and we'd have to wait. It took them 2 weeks to credit her account back. It was around $2000. I know it wasn't that long ago for me where missing that amount of money for that length of time would have killed me financially.
I now pay my $16 per month with a real bank. Considering all the things that I spend money on in a month, having that peace of mind is worth $16.
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