Horrible! Hideous! Heinous! These are just a few of the words that come to my mind to describe my first impression from Advantage Bank!
I had one of the worst banking experiences in my life today at Advantage Bank. I went there to get a secured loan against a vehicle that I already own. Initially, when I walked in, there wasn't even a receptionist at the front desk. After waiting for a while, however, I was met by a lady who it turns out was filling in for the receptionist. I explained to her the reason for my visit. She had me fill out an extensive application. The application itself is terrible! It requests just about every single piece of information that a person could possible imagine! Surprisingly, it did not ask for my shoe size (which is large)! I mentioned to the receptionist that most of the information that was requested on the application would be displayed on the credit report itself. A very gruff, "we need for you to fill it out anyways," was the response.
After having filled out the dissertation, I was kept waiting in the lobby for over 30 minutes to see a loan officer. As soon as I entered the office of the loan officer, I politely asked her what had taken her so long to see me. The loan officer said to me that she was eating her lunch. I replied to her that someone could have at least told me that and I would have come back. Just so you know, the bank apparently shuts down around 2:00 p.m. Call it lunch time!
Immediately after that, I was handed paperwork with my credit score on it. My credit had already been run without my knowledge or consent. Yes, I should have read the fine print on the application, my bad. I wanted to speak with the loan officer first though, to get some more information pertaining to the loan itself. It turned out that the bank doesn't even do secured loans for vehicles over ten years old. Had I known that upfront, I wouldn't have wasted much of my precious time and taken a needless hard hit against my credit!
I recommend NOT using this bank! In retrospect, I wonder to myself, "What is really going on behind the scenes in this bank?"