On MSNBC’s Red Tape blog, Bob Sullivan offers some reasons to switch your bank as well as some direction. Among his advice: a tip on how to avoid missed bill payments:
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The easiest thing to do is double up. Keep both accounts open
and keep all your payments turned on until you can confirm that new payments have been received by the old payee. This will require having a lot of extra money to spare. A variation involves paying with your new account a full 10 days earlier, giving you time to cancel scheduled payments from your old account. You’ll still need the extra money in case a payment lands in limbo. In either case, it’s good to set up overdraft protection on both accounts by linking the checking account to a credit card, savings account or line of credit, so there’s backup if you screw up.
The simplest – but most time-consuming — method is to open the new account without closing the old one, and then switching one bill payment one month at a time to the new account, making sure each one is set up properly before switching the next one.
Read his other tips, like how to look at “medium-sized” institutions and judge a financial institution by the people working there.
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I opened a business account having moved from Lloyds as I got suckered by the advertising. It took ages to open, they lost the signatories paperwork, took a month to change the business name and when money started coming in via BACS they would not let me withdraw it until it had sat in the account, cleared for 4 days????? I have never managed to speak to my business manager once.