thats it.. only 4 negative comments about FirstMerit Bank? Well you should do a search for Chase Bank,, there are pages and pages of search results, and then when you access a site, there are pages and pages of customer complaints, they send blank checks to you to pay off other creditors, for a low rate, then when you have accumulated a huge balance consolidating all your credit card accounts, they raise your rate as high as 30.1 percent ,, Its criminal,, there are class actions suits against this bank,,, as far a FirstMerit goes, they are here,, they are local, they are Ohio Based, and they are accomadating,, professional,, and customer relations are very good, they are also very kind, I have yet to be connected to India when I call the customer contact center, actually, I have only had to talk as far as Akron Ohio.. This is a good solid bank,, sure they all have their overdraft fees, the way to get around it,, don't sign up for overdraft protection if your gona bounce checks, ,, they will return the check unpaid, and you can deal with it on the other end.

I knew may account was running low, bills were due, And I finally get some money in a go to deposit it. make out my bills and pay some online. I was not watching my account that week. and 10 $28 dollar fees were taken out of my account because my account was on hold for 1 day after deposit. About a week after that I think I have about just made a 575 deposit, pay a thousand dollar house payment and there there is 276 in my account. When call the bank, .Because funds were not available.I asked why did the y put everything through, they said they knew the money was in the account there fore every one got paid and they made 28 dollars on each one. I Have had trouble with this bank before when a 4000+ deposit was completely lost and 5 day went on before they were able to fine it. I have had deposits lost when they were merging with citizens. I was always civil. Even when we had loss of work. I used about 3 years ago I did the same thing, Deposit my check, pay bills. they charged a very small percentage like 5 bucks or so and it was done. They NEVER disclosed the the game has changed. I feel that they are just taking advantage. If you are looking for a bank do no choose this one, the only reason i am still there is because of the age of the account. Here is the kicker, most of my deposits are from fortune 500 companies. I really feel there is no reason to hold funds anyway, If the check does go bad then I deserve the fees. Never has happened yet!

I also received outrageous fees. If you accidentally overdraw then the overdraft fee will take effect BEFORE the 'held purchases' are processed. They also process same day transactions from biggest to smallest so that they can take advantage of you with every opportunity they find.

After several years of service and a clean account they refused to drop any of the 4 $33 fees which I was given for a VERY small accidental overdraft.

Not only that, I emailed a complaint about the rudeness of one of the employees and complained about these 'technicalities' that do not benefit the customer (in fact take advantage of the customer) and wanted to know what the company could do to better the experience for future customers and they sent a response that stated I could not receive a reimbursement of fees (I didn't ask for one, duh!) and that I was welcome to take advantage of their overdraft protection plan (Did you miss the part where I closed my account, oh and BTW why wasn't this offered when I was inside the bank?).

So long story short they will do what they can to get your dollar.

This is a good, solid bank. I am a public accountant and recommend clients to use this bank. Customer service is great and they efficiently handle any concerns that you may have.

I do not recommend this bank to anyone. I was charged outrageous overdraft fees for a pending transaction that didn't go through until days later. If you don't mind poor customer service and high fees, bank here!