Charter One Bank

Staff is always friendly and willing to help. One time I even left my debit card in the atm and they helped me retrieve it as soon as possible. If there is a line inside the wait is never long, they work efficiently to get you in and out and on with your day.

Let me start this review by saying first and foremost– I DO NOT BELONG TO THIS BANK! But the one negative experience I had with them convinced me not to take my business there, even though they were located right in front of my apartment building.
So, here’s what happened:
My friend came in from Toronto last year to go to the auto show/​do a little partying/​whatever. When he got here, he wanted to exchange his Canadian money for American. We called up Charter One to see if they’d do it even though neither of us had accounts– they said they would.
We were starving, but we decide to hit the bank first. Such a simple transaction should only take minutes, right? We walk over to the bank and we’re called up quickly. We tell the teller that we want to exchange his money. He doesn’t want to exchange it ALL, so he asks her a simple question.
«How much Canadian cash do I have to give you to get $ 300 (American, obviously) back?»
She looks up the exchange rate and fiddles around with numbers for 5 minutes. She can’t seem to figure the equation out so she calls over the next teller to help her. They go over the numbers for a few more minutes. Meanwhile, my friend and I had figured out how much money he needed and we told them. I guess they didn’t believe us or something because they call the MANAGER over. So the MANAGER and TWO tellers are trying to figure out how much Canadian $ equals $ 300 American. They still can’t figure it out, so they ask my friend to just hand over a set amount and let them exchange it. (Note: I THINK in early 2008 the Canadian dollar was worth more than the American. This MAY be what led to the confusion, but still…)
ARE YOU SERIOUS?!
A manager and 2 tellers couldn’t figure this out?! I know not everyone excels at simple math, but this is a BANK. Your job is to deal with numbers.
Anyways, my friend ends up handing them $ 300 Canadian and they exchange it for him. And that was that. They apologized for the inconvenience and you could tell they were embarrassed as hell. What should have been a quick trip to the bank ended up turning into a 25 minute wanttosmackyourheadagainstthewall adventure. He had never been to the U. S before, so this was definitely not a good first impression (but then I took him over to the Fly Trap and fixed all that).