Bank of the West Reviews

I am deeply concerned about the way Bank of the West operates with investment funds like Breckenridge Property Fund 2016, LLC in Texas. As a homeowner, I discovered after foreclosure that Bank of the West was involved in a warehouse line of credit tied to my property — something I was never informed about. Bank of the West and Breckenridge appear to be doing back-door deals with homeowners’ properties without disclosure, and then Breckenridge shows up to bid at foreclosure sales. This raises serious questions about whether these transactions are truly arm’s length sales or insider arrangements that strip families of their homes without transparency.

Our business has two commercial loans with Bank of the West which is now BMO. Customer service was bad with Bank of the West and continues to be bad with BMO. The company is fragmented and they are incapable of communicating with each other in a cohesive manner.

I have a BMO (Bank of the West) credit card, and have used it in many instances for purchase protection. I was recently scammed by a seller on ebay, who substituted a purchase with a cheap alternate. I tried to file a dispute with BMO, and was refused because that is not considered "fraud." Switch and bait and any other known criminal activity is ok with BMO, just as long as it does not fit their definition of fraud. The phone help, especially Tina Slocum, was dismissive and annoyed. She could care less. I sent all the info requested, and she shut down the case. The BMO master card will not offer you any protection. If you are using it for that reason, don't bother.

The bank tellers and the branch manager at Bank of the West in Arcadia, California cannot keep customers' confidentiality. They gossip and create major problems in companies and accounts holders. You cannot trust your personal information with them.

I paid OFF my card ($1,087.00) BEFORE the due date 0n 1 JUNE 2023 and they won't credit the card until 9 JUNE and the money was taken out of my account TODAY 2 JUNE 2023!!!! This is the same bank that was taken over by a US/CANADIAN bank after it folded!!!!

I went to the bank and closed my account. They said the account is closed and gave me a final check that would zero out the balance. A month later I got notice from Bank of the west charging me insufficient fund for trying to send money to my mortgage company and other creditors under banking online auto pay. Not to mention all creditors were charging me for sending money for sending them insufficient fund checks. Went to the Bank of the West, talk to the manager, asking them why they are still sending out checks on an account that was closed a month earlier. She told me they have corrected everything and I need to pay them $47 under overdraft protection. Again a month later I got a letter from creditors that Bank of the West was sending them check and rejecting it for insufficient fund. Now the creditors are charging me again for sending them check with insufficient fund.

I was charged a late fee for an additional payment that I made. Instead of reversing the late fee, they went and reversed the next payment I made & I still have not received the $$ back in my account. Nobody seems to know what happened and even though I can see all of the activity on the loan site, they swear there are no late fees and nobody can explain why they reversed my next payment and why it has taken over 2 weeks and I still don't have the money back in my account. I will NOT recommend this bank to anyone.

BOW this is the second chance I have given to earn my business and you have failed. I thought by now you would have worked out your very clunky HELOC process. Other companies are blowing you away. In 2016 I had the same experience of overkill and redundancy to the point I moved my entire mortgage away from you. After weeks in chaos I started over with Amerisave and was done in 6 days. For now you still hold my checking, savings accounts (4 in total) that I only keep because of my relationship with my personal banker. BUT I can't say I feel safe in your hands and I don't foresee that keeping me here much longer. Streamline your application process, know your customer, stick to timelines.

I received a mail from the Bank of the West for a balance transfer. I applied for the card and requested a balance transfer of $7200 on January 9. The money never came but the Bank of the West was withdrawing money from my account on February 9 and March 9, $225 and $218. When I called, the representative said they cannot refund money but will reissue a check. When I called the second time, they put me on hold for an hour. They stole my $443 and refuse to refund. If this is not a thief, I don't know what is.

I wanted to call ahead (day before). I purchase something that is more than my spending limit. Supervisor says I need to call the exact day to let them know. I said I will be too busy to call the day of so I wanted to call ahead. Supervisor says it's their policy that I need to call the day of the purchase. I said, "It's for a doctor's procedure and I won't have time to call tomorrow." I asked him to provide me that policy but he says he could not cause it's internal. How would people know it's their policy if they cannot even provide that policy to us. I'm just trying to use my own money. It's not their money! They are treating your money as if it's their money. Wth. All I needed was money for my doctor's procedure and now I'll have to find time tomorrow to call knowing I'm going to be very busy. Don't bank here. My other bank already approved my limit increased as of yesterday. I will likely pull all my money from this bank.

Bank of the West worst customer, my account was overdraft on 01/24. I have money Zelle to Bank of the West to cover overdraft. At 3:11pm bank charge me $35 saying cutoff time was 3pm so money post next day. After calling to complain Bank of the West charge me another $35 for overdraft on 01/25 for the overdraft charges, try getting in touch with CEO Nandita Bakhshi in SA but no phone number to contact headquarters. I contact the Better Business to further investigate.

Have called their customer support line multiple and their hold time is more than an hour. I went into one of their branches, but denied service and told to return another day because they were too busy. I called their headquarters and this rude female picked up the phone and refused to provide her name saying she can't give it out. I was told to call another number. I spoke with a male who also had an attitude. He said he'll have someone from their management team give me a call. This is unacceptable. I can't believe this bank operates this way. It's a shame they operate this way.

I have been a client of this bank since 2017, I have an auto loan with them. I had never had a problem until now. I make a payment every month, I have a couple of years making the payment online. Earlier this month, when I was about to make a payment online, my account said I had no payment due and that my next payment had to be done by 1/19/2023. I thought it was weird, since I didn't made a payment since November. It was like a week before Christmas so I decided to call Customer Service to verify this was true. Their representative confirmed it was true and had told me that my next payment was due in January. I asked why was that if I didn't make a payment in December and the Customer Service told me that I must of made a payment for more than the amount due before and that was probably why I didn't have to make one.

On November 28, 2022 I went in to a Bank of the West branch to deposit a Required Minimum Distribution Inherited IRA check into my savings account with less cash back. It is drafted in my name including “beneficiary” and my late brother’s name. I have done this every year since my brother's passing in 2011 and had never experienced any issues or refusal. But this time, the teller pointed out the fact that it was drafted as such, she needed approval from management. So, I was agreeable and she went to seek approval from a supervisor. Unfortunately, she came back and told me that the supervisor had refused to authorize it.

Worst bank to work with! DO NOT FINANCE WITH THEM! We paid off a loan held by Bank of the West for a boat purchased. Have been requesting paperwork for over 90 days to get the US Coast Guard documentation deleted from the vessel. Bank of the West has not complied with our request after weekly phone calls, emails and faxes. It should not take over 90 days to fill out 1 piece of paper! Completely unacceptable banking practices.

After being a customer for 1.5 years, I received an obscure document stating that I was under investigation and not explaining the reasons. Some questions were really suspicious without context, others did not make any sense. Upon completion of the document, the money disappeared from my accounts, and I was refused the service with no explanation. The employees were rude and the management was unresponsive. I felt insulted and humiliated. I will never trust this bank again with my finances. I have reported them to FDIC.

I have dealt with Bank of the West for 3 years now. I make my husband’s loan payment for a camper he purchased while on the road. They won’t set up automatic draft for the payments and reaching someone to make a payment is a nightmare! If you reach a human, they say it’s a different department and transfer to someone who doesn’t answer and returns your call a week later so you can’t get paid off because of the late fees they add. It operates like there are only 2 employees who don’t communicate with each other at all!! Do NOT use this bank for anything!

Date: 10/12/2022 We have been business customer of this bank for over 35 years, and we have multiple accounts with high figures. We are a small business we international and national sales. Out of all accounts, one checking account is used to interact with the outside and the rest are either strictly CC accounts or saving. On 9/16/2022, the bank put a hold on our main checking account due to fraudulent deposit, and this happened when I and another person on the accounts are out of town. This caused a huge disruption to our payments to our vendors and services; since we were locked out of the account and unable to access the online banking to make payments. Some of our vendors and service providers put us on prepayment.

7 weeks since they accepted our check to pay off our motorhome loan and no title. We have called 7 times and are still waiting. I have financed over 20 vehicles in my life and have NEVER had this much trouble getting a title and the best is they will only send a release and I need to pay to do title work in PA. DO NOT USE THIS BANK for any reason unless you want the runaround and get no resolve to problems and weeks to waste.

Worst bank ever! The customer service is very hard to reach and they need a week to answer a simple message. My debit is going to expire very soon and I didn’t get a new one. I contacted them several times but they lied to me. They told my new debit card will arrive the first week of the month and a week after it was the 10th and now they don’t even know if I’m going to received my card before the old one expire. I told them that this card is link to bills and that I would not be able to pay because of their incompetence. I don’t even have a credit card 'cause they forget to send me a new one. I keep asking them when I should get my new card and the answer is, "We don’t know…"

Bank of the West has been a nightmare! The bank is so poorly managed and they are crooks. I would steer away from Bank of the West if you value your money. They charge fees on our accounts without reason nor services we signed up for to line their pockets. They lost their rights to use Zelle due to their own fraudulent behaviors costing us since we now cannot collect monthly revenue for our business via Zelle. They lie, cheat and should not be trusted. We recommend banking with the MOB before ever choosing to do business banking at Bank of the WILD West because, you will be sorry like we are for taking our business banking here.

I have only had an account here for about 6 months. First I deposited a check into an ATM at one of their branches. The next morning I look at my account online and instead of there being the amount on the check available to me, it was negative the amount of the check I deposited. When I called customer service and put on hold for 2 hours they said it was an IT problem and they said hopefully it would be fixed but they didn't know when. It was fixed 2 days later. Then, I lost my debit card, called customer service again 3 times in a month to have them order me a new one and I still have not received a new debit card.

Had an account for over ten years. Recently changed mobiles to Apple - both IPad and IPhone. Trying to use the mobile deposit has resulted in abortive phone calls and repeated log-ins and verification. Visited the local branch that is still functioning to find a notice ‘Temporary Closure’. Every time I try to access the Mobile app on the website it informs me that the sessions has timed out. One of the worst banking experiences I have had with any bank.

I have been trying to pay off my loan. They took the money but are giving me the run-around about getting my title. Every Time I call they tell me a different time frame. This is very bad business. It is so frustrating. I will never get a loan from them again.

We recently paid off our car loan with Bank of the West. The Bank of the West decided to retitle the car in a different state then our home of record and original title of the car loan. We are military and our original title was in Oregon as is our home of record. We have all of our cars, travel trailer etc in Oregon. We purchase all of our cars etc in Oregon, however The Bank of the West has decided to do commit banking negligence and malpractice by choosing to retitle OUR car where THEY wanted it titled. The Bank of the West did not call us, did not inform us this would be done or that this was a policy of any kind. When we called to try to clear this matter up, they simply said "sorry, we can't help you, you are are on your own." So basically The Bank of the West got their money, and we paid them off early by the way, and then decided to intentionally do harm to their customer. That is the very definition of bank negligence and malpractice if you ask me.

Bank of the West's incompetence is costing me money. A few times over the past years I missed payments BECAUSE I NEVER GOT A STATEMENT. They blame USPS but I never had this problem with other cards. This also doesn't explain why I never got email reminders for the same months. This happened again last month - but then my bank account disappeared off their system so I COULDN"T make the payment. I told them about this and it never got resolved. Fast forward to this month. I STILL didn't receive a statement (in either paper or electronic form), but now I am "delinquent" because their web site STILL won't let me make a payment!!! The cherry on top - they will not credit the fee/interest even though this is their fault. Slick way for them to make extra money...

Since I upgraded my iPhone 6 Plus to iPhone 13, the Bank of the West Mobile Deposit App does not work. On May 3, I deposited a Business Check in my Savings Account in the amount of $5,300. It was accepted, got an e-mailed confirmation. Unfortunately, the amount was not reflected in my account because the same amount was debited. To make the story short, I ended up depositing the check to a nearby bank after talking to the Manager. I was told they were understaff and that the mobile deposit was treated like it never happened. He said to mail it or deposit it to another bank.

Is this financial institution a complete joke? Should others be concerned that this financial institution is not backed by the FDIC? Can we assume that this financial institution is purposely ripping off its customers to make money in this troubling economic time? This bank has systematically drain my accounts over the course of three months for no reason per hidden overdraft protection fees and other hidden payment systems that they do not tell their customers about. This bank is easily compromised through security and for that reason alone I do not trust anything this bank has to offer in the least and if I were you I would take all your money out of it immediately. Bank of the West has made my quality-of-life exponentially worse in less than five months of having this Bank. If you are considering Bank of the West please use another-federally backed- financial institution.

I opened an account with Bank of the West because they were offering a $250 sign up bonus after 90 days with direct deposit and because I was taking a trip to Mexico and I was told that to buy Pesos I would be charged the current days mid-market exchange rate plus an additional $17 for processing and delivery. Then on the day I went to order them they overcharged me by about $130. Then, when in Mexico I tried to establish a transfer from my prior account with another bank to the BOTW account. It was flagged as fraud and my account was frozen because of the Mexico IP address.

I went online to my account, it said I was locked out. I had them send me a code. It said wrong code, resend. I had them resend the code. Again, it said wrong code. I called the 800 number. I was on hold for 30 minutes. When she finally answered, I asked her if we were disconnected would she call me back. She said, "No, we don't have that ability." Then she tells me she would have to transfer you to online services. The message came on saying the wait is 60 minutes. I had to hang up because I had to leave. I called back this afternoon, after waiting over an hour on hold a voice came on saying sorry we cannot help you, call back. UGH Worst customer service ever!!!!