My first bank account was a VanCity Fat Cat account back in the '80s, and I continued to bank there until just a few years ago when PC Financial and ING began leading the no-fee banking movement. Today I'm with Coast Capital Savings, whose marketing is easily as good as VanCity's and whose policies and customer service are infinitely better. I pay no fees to access my money, and for the first time I actually like going into the bank. I don't know if their business banking is as good, but I've been very impressed with their personal banking.

I started doing my personal banking with Vancity over a year ago and have been very pleased with the way they have handled my products (especially when compared to the piss-poor inconsistent service my partner swallows on a regular basis at TD Canada Trust). While I agree the "fees" in the industry are out of control and Vancity needs to adopt the model of ING and friends, they are head and shoulders better than the big boys out there like TD Canada Trust. As well, I appreciate placing my money with an institution that takes measures to improve and support the community I live in.

I too have a big beef with Vancity. I was a member for 20 years and in that time had paid off 2 mortgages and had invested in mutual funds with Credential Asset Management. I went in for a Line Of Credit for bridge financing for a house purchase and thought they would give me a good interest rate. I was then lied to, and was never given an apology when I caught them in that lie. Last fall I went in to re-up my mutual funds and, after the ABCP collapse (Asset Backed Commercial Paper) in August 2007, I asked them if there was anything amiss that I should know about. At that time I had not known about the collapse. My mutual funds were going down and their broker from Credential told me that there was nothing amiss and my funds were safe. So I re-signed for another (hte broker gets his pay). In January 2008 I then find out that Credential had lost millions in the collapse. I phoned Vancity and, in turn Credential, to find out what was going on. Complete silence on their part. By this time my funds have dropped 20 per cent. I then tried to get my money out of the mutual funds since I’m not getting any co-operation. It takes over a month and countless emails and phone calls to everyone up to the CEO of Vancity (I ended up losing 20 percent of my investment from the time I re-upped). They even lied to me about who their Director of Finances was. This person (Mr. Atkinson) even passed himself off to me as a Director. I was so livid that I went to their Annual General Meeting and signed up to speak. They were going to allow me to speak until they found out that I was going to ask about how they were ripping off clients by not telling them about the ABCP collapse and how it has affected their mutual funds. I believe if enough people have gone through the same thing ( I know I’m not the only one who’s been ripped off), we can start a class action lawsuit against both Vancity and Credential Asset Management. To add insult, they tried to pocket my membership fees when I left the credit union. How slimey is that????? I had to fight to get my 10 or 15 bucks back. I can’t believe how I was treated, even after there were numerous erroneous accesses into my accounts due to teller mistakes. They were paying other peoples bills on my accounts because the teller forgot to close my account before the next person in line came up to the teller.

Thanks for letting me rant.