Dime Community Bank – Williamsburg

I opened an online account with them because their rates were above average.
Problems:
1) I was misled into thinking I was opening a Savings Act and it turns out that you are opening a Money Market Act… not that big a deal except that for Savings Acts, monies are more restricted in how a bank can use them… so i felt a little misled…
2) The biggest inconvenience thus far is that they do not have a system in place for you to do ACH transfers between your DIME act and another institution… although you can FUND your account doing an ACH they require you to email them each time you want to withdraw… Called their Customer Service and was told their system does not allow for it yet… sounded very fishy to me. I don’t like their misleading information on their site and will be closing this account very soon.
If they had been straight with me from the beginning this would not have been an issue. I was ready to move a $ 100k over to them… now me thinks not.

Tried to setup a new online checking account since we live in the neighborhood and wanted a local bank for my daughter who just moved here. Their advertising said no minimum opening balance required, but after you enter all your financial information into their system and get to the initial deposit page, it requires a $ 500 minimum deposit — and you can’t cancel because at this point they already have your information. Once you get the paperwork from them (abour 2 weeks later) the paper disclosure they send says no minimum opening balance. So that is outright fraud. Next, when you open the account, they put a 30 day hold on your initial deposit so that you cannot withdraw it or write checks on it, which isn’t a problem since it’s that long before they send you checks or atm cards or even a statement showing you they have your money. They don’t even bother to tell you that you have to go by in person to request checks and the debit cards. After waiting 2 weeks for some kind of acknowledgement from the bank (after they had our money) I called them and they then informed me you had to go by in person. I suppose if you don’t bother to call, they just use your money forever and never give you access to it. Seriously, they don’t even bother to call or send paperwork to welcome me to the bank or provide next steps? Third, after opening the account, you have to take paper copies of utility bills to the bank to prove that everyone on the account lives at your address — even students who have no utility bills. I suppose I was suposed to put my electric bill in my daughter’s name to get her on the account? Luckily we were able to call her out of state college and have them change her address there and then send a copy of a transcript bill that had her name on it. Still, this is a RIDICULOUS requirement. They did inform me that if I couldn’t verify her address on a bill that they would have to remove her from the account — and this was an account we were setting up just for her after she just moved here this month from out of state. Fourth, after receiving the checks today (a month after opening the account), we tried to setup the online banking using either my name, her name, both of our complete and accurate sets of information. No surprise here that it wouldn’t work and told us we had attempted too many times and would have to visit or call the bank. I cannot wait to finally be able to go by in person to cancel this account and go somewhere else. Of course they told us we would have to wait 30 days before we could close it. AVOID THIS INSTITUTION AT ALL COSTS It’s too bad you cannot give negative stars.