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Key Bank Is Awful
Oct. 24th, 2013 04:36 pmIt should have/could have been real simple. I have a Canadian twenty-dollar bill in my wallet, I want to exchange it for American money, I take the twenty to a bank expecting ate best that I'd get a straight-up exchange, and ant worst that I'd have to pay some sort of conversion fee, bank fee, penalty, tax, service fee and insurance collateral to get my American Money.
I did NOT expect what happened at the Woodinville Key Bank KeyCenter, located at 14040 NE Woodinville-Duvall Road in Woodinville, Washington 98072 or the cold treatment and lies I received from Branch Manager Penny Troth.
The whole transaction went down like this:
ME: (Waiting in line ten minutes on my own while the single teller is explaining something to another customer. I can understand and accept this. Another teller finally opens her window)
TELLER: "I can help you here, sir!"
ME: "Thank you! This should be real easy, I just have a Canadian twenty here that I'd like to exchange for American money, please"
TELLER: "Of course! Do you have an account with us?"
ME: "I do not."
TELLER: "I'm sorry sir, we only do that for Account Holders.
ME: "Really? Well that's just great... let's go ahead and open an account then."
TELLER: "Oh! Okay! Well then I'll just need two forms of identification, and minimum opening balance will be $50"
ME: "That's fine, I only need to keep the account open long enough to exchange the $20, then I'll be closing the account"
TELLER: (Stunned) "There's a $5 account termination fee..."
ME: "That's great, that's fine. Would be a lot easier if you'd just cash out my Canadian twenty, but I'm willing to spend $5 and a bit of your time to get this done proper"
TELLER: "Okay... one moment please..."
PENNY TROTH: "Hello, I understand you want to open an account and then close an account?"
(An exchange goes back and forth where I explain that all I want is to trade my Canadian money for American money and she attempts to talk me out of it with an escalating parade of excuses starting at "That's for account holders only" to "You need a $50 deposit" to "There's a $5 termination fee", just as the teller before had done... and then she started telling lies)
PENNY TROTH: "I'm sorry, but we can't give you an account for that. And besides, we don't handle Canadian money at this branch. It is each Branch's decision as to if they will handle foreign currency, and this branch does not".
ME: (Long and dithering string of comments like "Really?" and "You're telling me that you're an American Bank, a place where people are supposed to feel secure in bringing their financial concerns, and you don't DO money from a country that's a quick drive away?" that didn't even touch on THE OVERWHELMING QUESTION OF WHY WE'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THIS FOR TWENTY MINUTES AND YOU'RE JUT NOW TELLING ME YOU DON'T DO CANADIAN MONEY?!?!?!) "Fine. Fine. Whatever. And your name, please?"
PENNY TROTH: "I'll be happy to get you my card"
(She slowly walked over to where her card was, greeting each other customer in a way that reminded me of a scene from "Big Top Pee Wee")
(I SWEAR IT WAS EXACTLY LIKE THIS!!!)
I then drove away with my $20 Canadian, extremely angry.
Key Bank had SEVERAL opportunities to try and make me a potential happy customer there, and instead they turned it in to an adversarial stand-off where they had to make up policies on the fly just to try and get me out of their bank.
Key Bank SUCKS.
I did NOT expect what happened at the Woodinville Key Bank KeyCenter, located at 14040 NE Woodinville-Duvall Road in Woodinville, Washington 98072 or the cold treatment and lies I received from Branch Manager Penny Troth.
The whole transaction went down like this:
ME: (Waiting in line ten minutes on my own while the single teller is explaining something to another customer. I can understand and accept this. Another teller finally opens her window)
TELLER: "I can help you here, sir!"
ME: "Thank you! This should be real easy, I just have a Canadian twenty here that I'd like to exchange for American money, please"
TELLER: "Of course! Do you have an account with us?"
ME: "I do not."
TELLER: "I'm sorry sir, we only do that for Account Holders.
ME: "Really? Well that's just great... let's go ahead and open an account then."
TELLER: "Oh! Okay! Well then I'll just need two forms of identification, and minimum opening balance will be $50"
ME: "That's fine, I only need to keep the account open long enough to exchange the $20, then I'll be closing the account"
TELLER: (Stunned) "There's a $5 account termination fee..."
ME: "That's great, that's fine. Would be a lot easier if you'd just cash out my Canadian twenty, but I'm willing to spend $5 and a bit of your time to get this done proper"
TELLER: "Okay... one moment please..."
PENNY TROTH: "Hello, I understand you want to open an account and then close an account?"
(An exchange goes back and forth where I explain that all I want is to trade my Canadian money for American money and she attempts to talk me out of it with an escalating parade of excuses starting at "That's for account holders only" to "You need a $50 deposit" to "There's a $5 termination fee", just as the teller before had done... and then she started telling lies)
PENNY TROTH: "I'm sorry, but we can't give you an account for that. And besides, we don't handle Canadian money at this branch. It is each Branch's decision as to if they will handle foreign currency, and this branch does not".
ME: (Long and dithering string of comments like "Really?" and "You're telling me that you're an American Bank, a place where people are supposed to feel secure in bringing their financial concerns, and you don't DO money from a country that's a quick drive away?" that didn't even touch on THE OVERWHELMING QUESTION OF WHY WE'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THIS FOR TWENTY MINUTES AND YOU'RE JUT NOW TELLING ME YOU DON'T DO CANADIAN MONEY?!?!?!) "Fine. Fine. Whatever. And your name, please?"
PENNY TROTH: "I'll be happy to get you my card"
(She slowly walked over to where her card was, greeting each other customer in a way that reminded me of a scene from "Big Top Pee Wee")
(I SWEAR IT WAS EXACTLY LIKE THIS!!!)
I then drove away with my $20 Canadian, extremely angry.
Key Bank had SEVERAL opportunities to try and make me a potential happy customer there, and instead they turned it in to an adversarial stand-off where they had to make up policies on the fly just to try and get me out of their bank.
Key Bank SUCKS.
