Timothy C. Hain, MD

Professor of Neurology, Otolaryngology, and Physical Therapy/Human Movement Science, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago IL, USA.

EMAIL ADDRESS: t-hain@northwestern.edu

This space holds helpful information about software and hardware and vendors that Dr. Hain has discovered by trial and error. There are also a number of rants about various things that Dr. Hain has found upsetting. Perhaps if enough of us do this, searches on these devices or companies will bring up more relevant information.

Bank Financial (1354 E 55th st, Chicago Il 60615)

6/9/07

Bank Financial, a midwest surburban bank operation, recently took over University Bank of Hyde Park in Chicago Illinois. University Bank was dingy and had awful service, and Bank Financial seems to be carrying on in their noble tradition.

The most disturbing event with University Bank had to do with my 8 year old daughter's "junior saver plan". The idea evidently was to encourage saving in young children. The way that they go about this is to open a savings account -- with their picture on it (a nice touch), and then pay them 1% interest on the account. Just imagine your little tot marveling at the 20 cents of interest/year that they got on their $20 opening balance !

Well -- anyway -- the disturbing part had to do with the $5/year service charge that was levied against the account due to "lack of activity". My daughter wrote a picture-note to the bank, and to give them credit, they refunded her $5 service charge. However, it seems to me that there is a serious lack of even low-level thought at this bank.

Other problems that Bank Financial has are incompetent phone operators (who for example, give out the wrong address to the bank), internal bank personnel that don't return phone calls, and an internet bank security question setup that is ridiculous. Of course, Bank Financial has the usual array of gigantic bankcharges for everything too. One wonders how Bank Financial can survive when it is surrounded by Chase terminals in the Walgreens, WaMu bank branches all over, and internet banks that offer reasonable interest rates.