State Farm Bank - any good?

Hi,

I was interested if anyone has any experience with State Farm Bank? More specifically, their interest checking account. http://www.statefarm.com/bank/bank_accnts/chkingaccnt/int_chkg.a... They say they reimburse ATM fees, including international ATMs, and give a pretty good 1.55% interest rate for accounts with more than $2500!

I called them up and they said they don't charge any extra fees for international ATM withdrawals (ie, foreign transaction fees), but this could be a misunderstanding by the CSR. I didn't get a chance to ask what the foreign transaction fee would be if I tried to use the debit card as a VISA.

Anyways, thanks in advance for any tips!

I don't know about international ATM reimbursements from them, but they have been excellent about refunding my US ATM withdrawals - from what I remember, you need to have a DD set up though. One minor PITA - no Estatements.

i use to have an account with them...they were good...and i think i recall that even a monthly ach push in of a certain amount also counted to get the unlimited reimbursements...i think they described it on their website....i never had a real direct deposit with them, and use to get the rebates with no problem...

in fact..here it is...as long as you do any ach push in once a month you will be fine:

State Farm Bank will not charge You for the use of ATMs not owned by the Bank (considered foreign ATMs). Further, the Bank will rebate a foreign ATM surcharge imposed by the ATM owner in any amount assessed against a State Farm Bank Checking, Interest Checking, or Money Market Account provided that there is a direct deposit or Automated Clearing House (ACH) credit into that account within 45 days prior to the foreign ATM transaction. If a foreign ATM transaction is made more than 45 days after any direct deposit or ACH credit into the State Farm Bank Checking, Interest Checking, or Money Market Account, the Bank will rebate up to a total of $10 in foreign ATM surcharges per account per statement cycle. State Farm Bank Savings Accounts will be rebated up to a total of $10 in foreign ATM surcharges per account per statement cycle.

This means that a monthly one (so this way you don't have to count...did i do one less then 45 days ago....lol) you get unlimited rebates..
if you don't do that, they will limit you to $10 back in rebates...so it's an easy requirement to do..

Also, i recall their Online Banking looked pretty nice and they use the nice Checkfree Bill Pay (another plus!)...the only thing i wasn't too keen about was i recall that their banking wasn't in Real Time and you didn't see things post as they happen.....unless they have changed that since i was with them (which was about 2 or 3 years ago).....actually, i'd be interested to know from someone who currently uses them, whether it is still that way....

I just opened an account with them. I haven't even done any billpays, written any checks, or used the ATM card yet. But the account opening procedure was smooth and the CSRs I spoke to were friendly and knowledgeable.

What attracted me to open the account was the free FedEx for check deposits of over $100. I can put check deposits into FedEx, for overnight delivery, and be able to track the progress. It's faster - and makes me less nervous - than check deposits into the USPS.

I had been using Investor Checking from Charles Schwab Bank for the past 2 or so years, and have no complaints about Schwab. State Farm also allows you to initiate ACH push or pull transactions from the website, without having to call a CSR like with Schwab Bank (I know that there is a workaround with Schwab: ACH into the brokerage account then transfer to the checking. I just think that SFB's method is a bit cleaner).

I suppose I'll use both accounts for awhile until I figure out which makes more sense for my day-to-day banking.

It's been reported they do a hard pull for every account opened.

Craig, looks like transactions are still only posting once daily. The balance in the account summary page reflects recent transactions, but the transactions themselves are not listed.

My wife is also upset with SFB because she has had some trouble activating her Debit card. She called a week or so ago when we first got them and she wasn't able to answer the security questions, because I had been the one to set up the account and she didn't know which answers I had chosen (guess we'd lose on the Newlywed Game). So she called back this afternoon with me standing next to her so that I could feed her the answers, and they told her that they had already flagged her card and she will have to go see our State Farm agent in person to have the card activated. Not a big deal to me (his office is only a few blocks from mine, and from our house), but it seems to have upset her.

Once I can convince her that this procedure is really to protect us and get her to go see our agent, I can get her using the account and we'll be all set.

I didn't even know about free TurboTax; bonus!

Thank you all for the feedback. Looks like I'll go ahead and try an account with them. I've been looking for a bank ever since my old bank went down the toilet (ebank). It had great perks. State Farm with the 1.55% interest and no need to keep up with the debit transactions make it good for me.

Sigh... it's just such a pain to change all my accounts to point to the new bank.

Does State Farm bank have any B&M branches? Can you do banking (I'm thinking CDs mainly) with an agent?

I received a notice today that 'State Farm is going green'. CD customers will no longer receive monthly paper statements. They will only be available on the web site.

Seems like if a bank offers non-web banking, they could not force web based statements. I have quite a few relatives who have nothing to do with this 'internet thing'. They would think that electronic statements are received by Western Union.

BradMajors said: I just got a letter from them today that they will be reducing the amount of information they have online to 60 DAYS! While I have been happy with them reducing the amount of information online to 60 days means I am now looking for another bank!
Same here. Just 60 days is ridiculous. But they're going to a new banking and bill payment platform, with online statements. I really hope that the statements are going to be available for a lot longer.

The 60 days of online availability won't bother me as long as e-statements are available for longer. I'll wait and see what happens after the conversion.

I got my checking account at State Farm Bank when I turned eighteen. I have been thrilled with them ever since. The most important thing for me is service. Everyone I have ever talked to there is actually located in the United States, knows what they're doing and is genuinely happy to help. I use the postage paid envelopes for all my regular deposits and the FedEx ones for large deposits. It's much more convenient than standing in line at a bank. Second of all, I have never had to pay a fee at State Farm Bank. They don't nickel and dime you. Besides the automatically reimbursed ATM fees (which are awesome), if you mess up and minorly overdraft once a year or less they'll refund the fee as a courtesy if you call and ask. I live in New York where most banks are very greedy and don't try to hide it when dealing with customers. State Farm Bank is a breath of fresh air.

I agree. I don't like the new system, and I called to complain. They didn't sound like they cared.

TurboTax 2009 coming soon for State Farm customers: TurboTax 2009

The minimal interest rate paid by State Farm is more than offset for me by the free online TurboTax access and filing (fed and state).

edit: Offer limited to the first 25,000 customers.

mihai124 said: I have been a customer for more than 4 years and use their debit card exclusively to withdraw cash abroad. I used to get reimbursed for ATM fees, even though the ATMs in Europe do not charge any fees. However, after they moved to the new system, no more free ATM reimbursements for me.

Did anyone else experience this?

I called them about this. It used to be same day ATM fee refund. Now, they refund once every month, at the end of the statement date.

mihai124 said: minggang said: mihai124 said: I have been a customer for more than 4 years and use their debit card exclusively to withdraw cash abroad. I used to get reimbursed for ATM fees, even though the ATMs in Europe do not charge any fees. However, after they moved to the new system, no more free ATM reimbursements for me.

Did anyone else experience this?

I called them about this. It used to be same day ATM fee refund. Now, they refund once every month, at the end of the statement date.

I have looked at my last 3 statements and no fees were reimbursed. Did you actually get any credits at the end of statement date?Yes - limited to $10 if there is not an ACH deposit posted during that statement, unlimited if there is.

How did you get reimbursed for fees, when there were no fees charged?

mihai124 said: Glitch99 said: mihai124 said: minggang said: mihai124 said: I have been a customer for more than 4 years and use their debit card exclusively to withdraw cash abroad. I used to get reimbursed for ATM fees, even though the ATMs in Europe do not charge any fees. However, after they moved to the new system, no more free ATM reimbursements for me.

Did anyone else experience this?

I called them about this. It used to be same day ATM fee refund. Now, they refund once every month, at the end of the statement date.

I have looked at my last 3 statements and no fees were reimbursed. Did you actually get any credits at the end of statement date?Yes - limited to $10 if there is not an ACH deposit posted during that statement, unlimited if there is.

How did you get reimbursed for fees, when there were no fees charged?

I used to get reimbursed for any amount over $5 increments; for example, if the amount withrawn was $24.85, they would give me $4.85 back. But, as I said, not any more.Well, thats entirely different. The ATM fee has to be identified as a fee by the ATM, not lumped into the total transaction amount, to be refundable.

So you were never getting ATM fees reimbursed, you were using an archaic policy - one that just assumed odd dollar amounts were 'fees' - to subsidize what I assume were your currency conversion costs. Now it has to be an actual surcharge to be refunded, and you're on your own for conversion costs. You cant really fault them for closing the loophole.