Bank of the West

I banked with B of A since high school and I was always treated like a number. Many years later I got married and opened a business during the worst recession of our lives. My challenge was to find a bank that was not part of the Evil Empire — a responsible bank. My husband said he was not going to bank with one of the banks that took bailout money and ripped off American citizens. I got a client who is an executive with Bank of the West who informed me that Bank of the West was very stable and they had not taken bail out money!
I felt like Bank of the West rolled out the red carpet for us when we went in to open an account. They were very polite and accommodating. The bank provided me with a banker who calls me periodically to see if there is anything she can do to assist me with my affairs. Once, I got stuck on the East Coast and ran out of money in my checking account. I was able to call Alma and she transferred money from one account to another and saved the day. I do not think that Bank of America would have done this for me.
Banking with Bank of the West has been one of the best decisions I have made. You will not be treated like a number at Bank of the West!

The story continues… After my terrible service experience at Bank of the West in Brentwood, life took me in a new direction to Campbell. (See my other BOTW Unilocal review for Brentwood for better context)
And so… My break up with BOTW went as follows.
Moved to Campbell. Keeping BOTW was convenient because I lived off union street and worked in the Pruneyard. And yep– there was a BOTW there too!
Well service was never good, but then again I came there to deposit and withdraw. If I could avoid the tellers and use the ATM I would.
As luck would have it I got promoted to a management position. Life was good. I went to go deposit a check and this one teller was just absolutely crazy rude. Offhand I can’t remember her comment except she made me feel as if I was inconvenient her by trying to deposit part of my check and withdraw the rest.
The straw that broke the camels back, so to speak, was after that last terrible experience with that teller I knew I didn’t want her again, sure enough I get her again. She looks at my check and calls someone over and she asks me where did I get this check. I tell her «my job?»
She said, and I will never forget this, «I’ve never heard of this place. This looks fake to me.»
That does it.
I told her of course she never heard of that corporation! It’s the corporation entity name! Their businesses and partnerships have their own names. I work under the corporation, the «behind of scenes».
Well– this nosey rosey takes my check over to her «supervisor».
I then walk to another teller and say «I want to finish cashing my check as soon as she is done calling homeland security on me and then close my account.»
The poor teller was so shaken she closed the account and I took the cash and shimmied my way over to Wells Fargo.
Bank of the West– you will NEVER touch a dime of mine again!

Great customer service. A little pricey on fees and there goes one star. However I believe they have other free account options. Overall, Bank business is all about customer service and this place does it well.

As a 25+ year customer of BOTW, I have received excellent customer service from all of the branches, however this Pruneyard branch wins the award for the most FAILS on the customer appreciation level.
First of all, when attempting to make a transaction they secretly look up all of the activity on your account and see what other accounts that you are holding with them — or lack thereof… in order to upsell you and promote all of their new services and incentives to you while you stand there waiting for them to conclude your transaction. The manager there is always looking over the tellers shoulders to see if they are upselling the service and checking in on them. Annoying.
This probably wouldn’t be so bad if this happened once or twice — but every single time I need to do my banking I don’t want to be upsold to.
Second, I would rather drive out of my way to go to another branch while making merchant deposits. They scrutinize EVERYTHING and the assistant manager picks over my deposit slips and the checks to always give me hard time about. (The endorsement stamp is not on straight, she can’t make out the date on a check… bla bla bla).
Ok give me a break already. Stop treating clients like criminals and appreciate your customers. If I wanted to commit fraud — do you think it would be over a $ 56 check???

The Teller and the Managers here are personable and very helpful.
They make something that’s normally boring fun!