Suck it, RBC — I’m a VanCity member now.
Overall, I’ve had a thoroughly successful morning. I went down to the VanCity at 1st & Commercial, which is conveniently located roughly halfway between my home & office (I work at one end of Commercial and live at the other) and met up with my new bank lady and left with my brand new E-Package chequing account and Jumpstart High Interest savings account. Which means I can close my old RBC savings account at any time, and in 6 months or so, will close my RBC chequing account.
I’ll be hanging onto both for a while yet. New accounts with VanCity have a 6 day hold on deposits through the ATM, I don’t have any hold on my RBC account. This will be revisted in 6 months, and as long as I have an active account, there should be no problem having that removed. So, my idea for now is to keep putting my paycheques into my RBC account, and just withdrawing a few hundred here and there and moving it over to my VanCity account and waiting the 6 days for it to show up and use it from there. Or, I could go to the teller, but … eh. I’m unfriendly, I don’t like talking to people. Besides, the ATM is free.
I’m also applying for a line of credit, although since I don’t want more than $5,000, it ends up being overdraft protection. Hrm. Not crazy about that, I’d sort of rather it was a different account all together. Having it available as a part of my chequing account makes it too easy to abuse. But, I also don’t want over $5,000 of credit. Bad things happen when I have lots of credit available. Granted, I end up with cool shit, but … yeah. Credit. Eep.
I was really happy with how VanCity works. Michele, my bank lady, was very pleasant and helpful and went over everything with me in great detail. And just as we were about finished, the bank manager came over to introduce himself to me and chat a little about why I chose VanCity. I think my answer was something along the lines of, “RBC annoyed me, and I like that VanCity is environmentally & GLBT-friendly.”
The biggest downside to VanCity is going to be when I leave the city for a couple of years. I can still use any credit union’s ATM fee-free easily enough, but I won’t have access to an actual teller if I need one. Still, I managed to live in Oregon for half a year without any bank access, and that went fine. As long as I can use debit, my life tends to run pretty smoothly.
So? I’m satisfied thus far. Even better, I was able to give the marmot’s girlfriend credit for convincing me to sign up (we’ll ignore the fact that I’d already decided before I mentioned it to her) and we both get a $10 credit. Which conveniently covered my share price, and left $5 for my shiny new chequing account. Yay us!
I’ve been away from the LM for 6 years, and I continue to use my VanCity account. Still happy (although I do have accounts with other institutions locally available).
re: line of credit – have you considered applying for one with ING Direct? They come in all sorts of sizes, operate entirely online and because it takes 2-3 days to move the credit account funds into your regular account can really cut down on the impulse purchasing.
Hmm. Nope, I want something that I can have instant access to. The hope for a line of credit for me is access to emergency funds — unexpected vet bills, broken car, bail, etc. The sort of stuff that I won’t want a 2-3 day delay on. I’m not crazy about having it TOO easy to use (ie, “la la la, I’m spending like mad, woo, I’m not out of money yet!”) but I want to be able to move money over from the credit line to the chequing account immediately.
The bank keeps phoning me and Brook and offering us lines of credit. We asked them to stop calling but they won’t. Stupid bank.
ing direct is awesome, if you’ve got a pile of money you want to leave alone.
Vince: Yeah, that … never really happens. Alas. :)
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