April 2022 by Daniel Garrett
tl;dr: Terrible customer service. An unfortunate waste of time. Go elsewhere and bank! Jackson has a dozen better options.Came here to open a checking account a couple months back. Called ahead of time and was told the opening deposit'd be $50 (their website also said it'd require a minimum opening deposit of $50). I gave them my name/SSN when calling and was told that, since I previously had an account with them, the sign-up process would be much smoother than if I were a new customer. Great! (re-)Sign me up.I get here, come inside, take my choice of three attendants, and give them my name/SSN/etc. I tell them my opening deposit will be a check of $50. After 30 or 60 seconds, the attendant leaves to talk with their manager and is gone for several minutes. Meanwhile, I feel like I'm hung out to dry.(Note that I had previously held an account with this bank's Union City branch when I lived in Martin — never used the account much, I eventually closed it at some point between 2017 and 2020 after several years of having a zero-dollar or, at most, one-cent balance. I originally opened it around 2016. It's not like I had an overdrawn account, I didn't pay it back, they closed the account and wrote it off as bad debt or anything — I just never banked with them and closed the account.)I think they were trying to figure out why my account was closed previously (which is something most businesses' information systems would keep up with, especially in an industry with such high customer acquisition costs as financial services). Either way, I didn't owe them money, nor had I ever owed them money — what's the issue?Whatever. After a 5- to 10-minute delay of the teller talking with their manager, Teller #1 comes back and we proceed with the process of opening a checking account. But she seems cold — it's like, even though her manager gave her the green light to open an account for me, she thought there couldn't possibly be a legitimate reason for having closed my previous bank account with them. Teller #1 seemed to signal something to another teller sitting in a desk beside us — like, " he's suspicious," etc. — Teller #2 comes over and says it'll be $100 to open the account. I was only told this AFTER I had told Teller #1 I only had $50 to open an account (i.e., "I'm glad y'all only require $50 to open an account since other banks in Jackson ask for $100 or more — $50 is all I've got right now.").... I didn't have $100. Teller #2 knew that since before she got involved with mine and Teller #1's business. I reiterate that I was told and that the website indicated I only needed $50. Nope. It's $100, she says (as if a bank's standard operating procedures change in an hour's time...).Remember — I had called no more than an hour in advance... the person I talked to informed me there'd be a $50 minimum deposit to open a checking account. The website said the same thing — $50. And I told Teller #1 I would be depositing a check for $50 to open the account — I said it plenty loud enough for the other teller(s) to hear, too.I was told it was a GOOD thing that I previously had an account with them. But, now, out of nowhere, it's an issue?I know this sounds crazy, with my profile picture being a proper-looking white male and all (it IS me in the pic, btw), but I feel like I was stereotyped or discriminated against just because I'm a young male.After the fact, I noticed that Teller #1, Teller #2, and another nearby teller were all women... y'know how (this is something everyone's done before, but it seems like this is more common among women than with men) people go out on dates and tell a friend, "If I text you, can you call me and pretend there's an emergency so I can leave without being rude?" It's like that's what Teller #1 was trying to do when she looked over to Teller #2 — like, after her manager told her that it was okay to go ahead and open
