Buckman - There are two branches listed for Urban Trust Bank in the Washington Metro area. I have yet to visit the Bethesda MD branch as traffic is hectic near Bethesda. I have had two distinct in-person experiences in the Landover MD - both negative. While I am ass-u-ming that the staff has good intentions, their performance is rather incredible. My first experience was in opening three accounts. While the checking accounts were much less time consuming, it took about 45 minutes or so to create a CD account with the correct APY on the certificate. I kid you not - I tend to review all of the documents produced during the transaction, and I noticed that the stated APY on the CD Certificate was significantly less than the publicized rate. Whoopee! What followed was a sight to behold - a continuous series of input attempts with continuous failures. So-called Branch Manager involved; a friendly fellow, he added no positive energy to the problem solving. Incredibly extended times for their computer response to inputs as if they were running on a dial-up line. I almost walked out, but eventually, somehow, a correct certificate was produced. Of course, there were boxes that had been erroneously "x'd" in or not by 'the computer', but none were critical to me; I hand corrected the entries. How much of this fumbling around was operator incompetence or systems flaws, or both, I'll never know. Second experience was to just open up a checking account. Straight forward, nothing special. However, there was only a single individual available to work on it and that individual was playing all of the roles - telephone answering, walk-up teller transactions, and my new account paperwork. The CSR said it would take about 20 minutes to complete the app and perhaps I had some shopping I could do in the WalMart. Not really, but I looked around. About 25 minutes later, I went back to the in-store bank branch, and the paperwork was ready to sign. How one tries to run a bank branch on one person is unbelievable. Clearly, there are some serious management problems at the Landover branch. And finally, I had an occasion to obtain some info from the Landover branch and made a telephone call - had to leave a voice mail message re the issue and asked for a call back. I did not get a return call until the evening. Apparently, that is the "service culture" at the Landover branch. So, be prepared for some most unusual "service" at that branch if you are doing anything other than a deposit or withdrawal. As with many 'pretend' banks or too big to fail enterprises, Urban Trust does not make their disclosure documents available online for a potential customer to view. They are truly not set-up for being an on-line bank. As their "about Us" history makes clear, they are doing the community banking thing within the geographic areas in which they are located. Basically, go to the physical branch for everything. If you want to see an most interesting Urban Trust Bank "Agreement", try to get a copy of the "Agreement" re: On-line access, electronic transfers, and other on-line transactions. After reading how the Agreement was written, I decided not to take any risks with their on-line services at this time. Others may have a very different view of the "Agreement". They also charge -> continuing fees <- for "inactive accounts" so be sure to get a firm understanding of their definition of "inactive" if you wish to not make this an income source for Urban. I did get a recent mailing from them advising that they were going to be doing a "conversion" to a new system, Sept as I recall, and that they would be down for banking for a weekend. More details to be sent later. I do hope that whatever transpires with their new system, it can resolve some of the lack of responsiveness of the equipment in the Landover branch. I spoke with a few of the staff there and they all agreed that the responsiveness of the present system is "terrible". Lastly, just as with ALL other financial institutions, pay strict attention to the FDIC insurance applicable to your deposits. Good Luck Buckman and other souls using the Landover MD branch of Urban Trust Bank. | 