This editorial review web page contains and includes our opinions, hunches, suspicions and best guesses, and the opinions, complaints, hunches and unverified allegations of many, many others:

 

Key Bank Sucks, and we really mean it:

December 12, 2021

 

Banks wonder why their customers hate them.

Here's an example of why:

Over the last several decades I have purchased about 8 yachts through Key Bank. They offered a 10% down plan which was often what I wanted. I've been out of the US through the Covid mess, but am just now, December of 2021, thinking of going back to the US and buying another boat. I am a born-USA citizen, with a Washington state permanent address and Washington driver's license.

For the past few days we have been attempting to ask Key Bank, in Washington State, the simplest question you could ever possibly imagine. I simply wanted to know if the 10% down plan on yacht financing was still in effect. If it was, then that might affect my decision to go back to the US to buy another boat, or not go back. My decision certainly wouldn't REVOLVE around that, but it was one small factor to place on the balance scale in the decision-making process.

It was the easiest question in the world and should have required a response of perhaps 10 words -- 15 tops -- and a time expenditure of perhaps 25 seconds. That's a worthwhile investment for KeyBank, considering there was a 90%+ chance it would bring them a relatively high yield customer within 90 days. It was SUCH an easy question -- except if you ask Key Bank.

Yet Key Bank of Washington state has gone out of its way in every possible manner to keep from answering the question. Why?

It's called deliberate obfuscation and we've all had a gullet full of it. It's a game their employees play. I know because I was once married to one of their customer support ladies. The accounts of mindless, counter-productive customer abuse (abuse) she related to me were horrendous beyond comprehension.

I've been involved in SO many industries around the world, from medical to aerospace to aviation to logging to helicopter logging to marine rescue to being a well-published writer and photographer of some small acclaim, to being a legal advisor to a teacher -- and in all those professions and many more, dealing with various strata of society and types of humans, I can honestly say that THE most unprofessional, incompetent humans I have ever, ever encountered, on the whole, have been found in financial institutions. I haven't a clue why this is true. One would think the express opposite would be true. But it's not. The most prolific screw-ups on God's Green Earth are to be found in banks. Explain that to me, please.

Below you'll find our entire exchange with Key Bank, and then YOU can also decide if you ever want to struggle to perform the slightest business transactions with these people, or to simply skip them, and skip the insanity. Or, if you're entangled with them already, our suggestion is to get out. Get out now. Get out quickly. Get out while you still can before (before) they drive you to terminal exasperation and apoplexy.

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From me:

Hello. Many years ago I was your customer and I financed many pleasure boats through you because you were easy to deal with. The standard arrangement was 10% down, survey of the boat, etc. Are you still financing a lot of boats in this way? Still 10% down? Thu 11:42 PM KeyBank

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From KeyBank:

Hi Bob, for more information on our Boat and RV loan programs please visit https://bit.ly/31AnW7b or call at 1-800-539-9055. One of loan specialists will be happy to review options with you. Thank you. ^DD Fri 5:04 PM

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To call is problematic because I am currently in SE Asia near the border of Vietnam and Laos. There are NO land-lines (but plenty of land-MINES). Cell reception is spotty. When a connection CAN be made, the sound quality is so bad that 85% of the time no one can hear nor understand anything. In about that many cases the call will self-terminate due to bad connections. In short, to try to call is a waste of time. And let's not forget that banks check a box when they set up their 1-800 number to NOT accept 1-800 calls from outside the US. And when they offer to accept a collect call from outside the US, it never, ever works. THIS IS WHY WE HAVE TEXT MESSAGING SYSTEMS. Yet every bank seems to be of the belief that every single person in the world resides inside the United States. Bankers live in tiny, hermetically sealed bubbles and they have never considered that there could ever, possibly, be life outside that bubble, therefore they're blind to it. Further, banks don't seem to grasp that their websites seldom work and they can't be bothered to check them. Why? because they're genetically incompetent and lazy. For instance, this "customer service" rep suggests we go to their page and click a button to "learn more". Below is a screen-print of the page they send you to:

 

And below is the error you get when you click on "Rates and Fees". It's typical bankers' incompetence and it is absolutely endless:

 

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From me:

When I try to connect to that link I only get an error. I am not in the US right now and so can't schedule an appointment anyway (you want me to schedule a formal appointment and drive to some location and wait in a lobby merely to get a yes or no answer to a question that should have been answered in the first sentence in your first reply? Seriously?). Please, please, this does not have to be difficult. Can you please merely have someone who knows about your current policies with boat loans contact me. Email is fine as follows: -----@gmail.com. This does not have to turn into a nightmare. I am simply trying to ask a simple question so I can ultimately end up giving you money. Please don't make it a nightmare to find the answer. Fri 8:42 PM KeyBank

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From KeyBank:

Hi Bob- I apologize, you would need to speak with a trained loan expert. When you are back in the United States, feel free to reach out to us, and we would be more than happy to assist you. Thanks ^KC Fri 10:07 PM

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From me:

My God you people are absolutely impossible and I am going to post a website detailing this insane exchange. Whether or not you still offer the 10% down financing WILL PARTIALLY DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT I RETURN TO THE US TO BUY A BOAT. Please try to grasp that I am asking you a dog-simple question and for some unknown, mysterious reason, you are doing everything in your power to keep me from learning the answer. Try to stay with me here: Merely give this email address to someone who can answer this question AND ASK THEM TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION!!! Banks wonder why the public hates them -- guess what?! THIS IS WHY! Answer the question please or find it posed to you publicly, online, in a very, very visible way! You people truly take the cake! Fri 10:33 PM KeyBank

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From KeyBank:

Bob -Thank you for the inquiry. We don't have any current promotions going on as you described. The best and most current info is on our site. When possible, you can visit our page and click on "Rates & Fees" to review disclosures for this in more detail: https://www.key.com/personal/vehicle-loans-lines/boat-rv-loans.jsp. What we offer on this page is the only option at this time. You must Live within the following states: AK, CO, CT, ID, IN, MA, ME, MI, NY, OH, OR, PA, UT, VT, or WA to apply. If preferred, you can call us at 1-800-539-2968 to connect with a loan specialist. We appreciate your interest in our loans and hope you have a safe time traveling! ^KC 7:36 PM

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From me:

Ok. I wasn't talking about any "temporary promotions"!!!! This was standard policy for DECADES. The page you keep referring me to, as I stated previously, (1) doesn't answer the simple question and (2) any links to try to look deeper spit errors and nothing else (see screen-print above). Again: The RATES AND FEES buttons only produce errors. This is the second time you were made aware of that. Would you like to go for three? Five? How about nine? You just earned yourself a website called "KEYBANKSUCKS". You are idiots. When did I ever say I'm not a Washington or US resident? Are you saying that since I am traveling, I have NO OPTION to contact you in any reasonable manner? I have a permanent Washington home and my driver's license is in Washington but I am in SE Asia for the time being and am contemplating going back to Washington to buy a boat and financing it through Key Bank (as I have many times in the past, when Key Bank wasn't insane and counter-productive). But you have shown me there is something wrong with you, mentally. No matter what I do, you absolutely, positively refuse to answer the simplest question in the world. Maybe it's alcohol, or maybe it's drugs, or maybe you were simply born mentally retarded. We have just now initiated the website and we'll flesh it out and fill it in and complete it over time. Congratulations, you've truly earned this. We should have known that even the simplest, easiest of questions would be met with crap like this. We will send this link by registered mail to every Key Bank manager we can find who might even remotely be your superiors, so they can decide if they want the likes of YOU representing their bank, and driving customers away with stupidity and what appears to be purposeful obfuscation (or are you actually this dumb?). What is the REASON you want customers to go away? What's the logic behind it? We hope to make you really, really famous. You are imbeciles. Here's the link, for your enjoyment:

http://www.truth-or-consequences.com/badder_business_bureau/keybanksucks/index.html.

Your bosses will see it soon enough. Key Bank Sucks, and we really mean it

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And what is the conclusion of this exchange?

Key Bank refused to answer the question, and has refused to respond in any way whatsoever.

We will use another bank.

THIS....is precisely the kind of counter-productive insanity that drives customers away from ANY business and makes those businesses eventually fail. This kind of stupid exchange is exactly the product of Snowflakes and Millennials who can't tie a bloody shoe (now they have velcro). The thinking, working, producing world is sick to death of it and so are we.

Imbeciles.

Key Bank truly sucks, and we truly mean it.