Any BMO experts?

In my seemingly never-ending quest for the right fit of a financial institution (now that Citizens is closing shop) I was researching BMO's website. For some reason, I'd never really given them a thought before. It's the only one of the big 5 I really have no personal experience with.

I like their "plan" idea, where you can have multiple accounts under one fee. Also, their thresholds to waive fees seem better than most, if not all others.

I'm looking at the Plus plan for only $1500 account balance to waive fees. 30 transactions is probably plenty for me as I use my credit card for most everything and just pay it off once a month. If I'm reading it correctly, that will also get me a free USD account and savings if I wanted, provided the total transactions in all accounts don't exceed 30.

A few questions for anyone who is familiar with BMO.

1. Is my above assumption correct about the fees for accounts?

2. What is the general consensus on their customer service? I don't hear a whole lot about them.

3. What exactly is their "personal credit reserve"? Is it just an extended overdraft, or are the interest rates more in-line with a LOC? How exactly does it work? I couldn't find much info on it on their website.

4. Any particular reasons not readily apparent why you would, or would not, recommend BMO?

I just found a BMO branch a few blocks from me that has some of the best branch hours I've seen of any bank. It's not something that's huge for me, but a nice convenience.

Thanks in advance!

tkyoshi is an expert since he works for bmo.

But i can answer your #1, u are right.

I worked with a rep in branch for a transfer of my BMO Investorline RRSP last fall to a branch, they lost the contents of the RRSP for over two months. When I say lost, I mean they told me at one point over the phone that I never had the money in the account, and at another point the internal physical check sent from Toronto to my branch went missing.

Earlier this year they kept recommending me to change packages to cut fee costs, each time they in turn charged me more fees... I think at one point they had me in six accounts, each they said were disconnected so I was billed fees on each. That took a while to clear up, and they did credit my accounts (after I insisted).

Every month they phoned me regularly to sell me 2 or 3 year GICs. When I told them I wasn't interested, I just wanted a plain savings account and to stop calling, the weekday calls moved to Saturday afternoons at 5pm.

Things were resolved twice by a Regional executive when I told them I was going to the media (particularly about losing the RRSP money... how could they take care of customer's money when they lose it internally) and I began a regular pattern of transferring money out to another bank after each screwup.

That's pretty much the exact same account setup I have with the BMO and I can confirm that you won't pay any fees (as long as your chequing account balance never drop below $1500).

In my experience customer service is fine, sometimes I swear there's 8 people working there, but only 3 booths open and I'm waiting in a huge line, but on the flip side I've gotten fees waved on abnormal transactions at times just by chatting up the tellers.

Originally Posted by Salinger

1. Is my above assumption correct about the fees for accounts?

Yup.

2. What is the general consensus on their customer service? I don't hear a whole lot about them.

I've never had significant problems with them. I do most of my transactions online. Even for more complicated requests, you can use the "write us" thing to send them a message, and everything gets done within 24 hours. When I do have to go in branch, there's never much of a line-up, and it's always pretty painless.

3. What exactly is their "personal credit reserve"? Is it just an extended overdraft, or are the interest rates more in-line with a LOC? How exactly does it work? I couldn't find much info on it on their website.

I think it's just their term for overdraft. They've got the overdraft transfer service, and the personal credit reserve, as far as overdraft protection. The fees for both are waived if you're on the Plus plan or higher.

I think BMO is often overlooked for some reason. I have the plan you mentioned and I also use my credit card for most transactions. You can have another acct for your spouse as well under the same plan. Pretty good deal for a $1500 balance. The savings acct is useless though I use ING for that. I also have LOC's with BMO at the standard rates

I have no problems with customer service I rarely need them anyways. Their online services are great which is more important to me because I use that all the time. I found better deals on mortgages and investments elsewhere, but I may look into Investotline some day when I can avoid the fees. $30 a trade no thanks

Originally Posted by Salinger

In my seemingly never-ending quest for the right fit of a financial institution (now that Citizens is closing shop) I was researching BMO's website. For some reason, I'd never really given them a thought before. It's the only one of the big 5 I really have no personal experience with.

I like their "plan" idea, where you can have multiple accounts under one fee. Also, their thresholds to waive fees seem better than most, if not all others.

I'm looking at the Plus plan for only $1500 account balance to waive fees. 30 transactions is probably plenty for me as I use my credit card for most everything and just pay it off once a month. If I'm reading it correctly, that will also get me a free USD account and savings if I wanted, provided the total transactions in all accounts don't exceed 30.

A few questions for anyone who is familiar with BMO.

1. Is my above assumption correct about the fees for accounts?

2. What is the general consensus on their customer service? I don't hear a whole lot about them.

3. What exactly is their "personal credit reserve"? Is it just an extended overdraft, or are the interest rates more in-line with a LOC? How exactly does it work? I couldn't find much info on it on their website.

4. Any particular reasons not readily apparent why you would, or would not, recommend BMO?

I just found a BMO branch a few blocks from me that has some of the best branch hours I've seen of any bank. It's not something that's huge for me, but a nice convenience.

Thanks in advance!

I used BMO, TD, RBC and CIBC.
I can tell you that BMO customer service sucks, but this depends on the branch of course, many times they could not do a money transfer that I had to go to a different branch because the teller didn't know how, and the bank manager "is busy".
Their online services are not always clear, I had a business account and the cra website says BMO offers these services, but people at the bank had no clue, I even phoned their head office and kept complaining up the management chain that they give false advertising on the cra website, until finally I spoke with someone that knew what I was talking about... but he told me I had to pay fees that are 10-20 times more than other banks.
Anyway, I switched banks since then.... say no thanks to BMO.

i have them for the student plan, love it

Originally Posted by albatman

I used BMO, TD, RBC and CIBC.
I can tell you that BMO customer service sucks, but this depends on the branch of course, many times they could not do a money transfer that I had to go to a different branch because the teller didn't know how, and the bank manager "is busy".
Their online services are not always clear, I had a business account and the cra website says BMO offers these services, but people at the bank had no clue, I even phoned their head office and kept complaining up the management chain that they give false advertising on the cra website, until finally I spoke with someone that knew what I was talking about... but he told me I had to pay fees that are 10-20 times more than other banks.
Anyway, I switched banks since then.... say no thanks to BMO.

We also have accounts with CIBC, BMO, RBC and TD. For us, RBC is the worst.

We've banked with BMO for more than 15 yrs, had generally good experiences. With any bank, I think it really depends on which branch you deal with. We've dealt with 3 branches and so far, they haven't messed up..LOL.

Have a chequing and savings a/c, with Plus Plan, TFSA and Investorline. Fee waived on chequing because we opened the savings in trust for our son (just to get the waiver, I know the interest rate sucks), added the Plus Plan and then linked the chequing a/c.

i have accounts with bmo, scotia, td and rbc...rbc is the worst, follow closely by scotia...bmo is good, td is the best so far, more like not even close.

Haha angel_wing thanks for the intro.

1) As confirmed, yes it is. Think of it like those phone plans where you share mins between each other. If you are a student you can receive the Plus Plan for free.

This is great for people who want a USD account but don't want to maintain a balance there. You can have up to 20 accounts on each plan.

2) Well obviously this can vary from branch to branch. BMO realizes that they are not #1 in Customer Satisfaction (TD is currently #1 overall) and are trying to make improvements.

3) Yes this is just a fancy name for overdraft. As mentioned there is also Overdraft Transfer available at no extra charge. You can designate up to 2 other accounts to look for money before bouncing items or using your PCR. You can designate a Bank Account, LOC, or Credit Card as a backup source. Overdraft is typically 21%, this is the same as other banks, there is no per-item fee.

4) That varies on personal opinion, you'll always be able to find someone that hates a particular bank. The only current pet peeve is how the TFSA Savings Account works. Currently you are unable to withdraw out on the spot, a request has to be made and the money will be dispensed within 48 hours. But it's minor on the whole as you shouldn't be w/d on a daily basis from TFSA.

albatman what exactly were you trying to transfer? Was it a payment to CRA? If so, unfortunately we are unable to remit anything to CRA without the payment stub. CRA can provide you a payment stub if you need one.

Personal Payments can be processed electronically without a stub by using your SIN. Without more info I can't really figure out what you were trying to do.

Originally Posted by tkyoshi

Haha angel_wing thanks for the intro.

...If you are a student you can receive the Plus Plan for free.

anytime

As i said before, love the bmo student plan. Too bad u dont get free cheques out of that.

Originally Posted by angel_wing0

anytime

As i said before, love the bmo student plan. Too bad u dont get free cheques out of that.

Ah yes but you can still do the plan "trick" (any bank). Change your plan to the highest one, order a crap load of complimentary cheques and then next month change it back. Even if you pay the fee ($24.95) it's still worth it, 1 box is ~$33 on it's own. Of course don't go crazy or else they might get suspicious, but you can order a couple boxes or what not.

You didn't hear it from me though

Originally Posted by tkyoshi

Ah yes but you can still do the plan "trick" (any bank). Change your plan to the highest one, order a crap load of complimentary cheques and then next month change it back. Even if you pay the fee ($24.95) it's still worth it, 1 box is ~$33 on it's own. Of course don't go crazy or else they might get suspicious, but you can order a couple boxes or what not.

You didn't hear it from me though

yip thats what i m going to do soon, but i just dont have $4500 to put out as i already have 5000+ at td and 3500 at scotia (for scene promo) --*

btw that method doesnt work with rbc (lousy multi product rebate) and scotia (free cheques account cant waive monthly fee) lol

I am with BM for the last 12 yrs . I am happy so far .

I only do about 8-9 transactions per/month ,( mostly telephone/online banking like bill payments & ABM cash withdrawal .)

I keep that $ 1,500 monthly balance & they waive all the fees .

It used to be $1,000 for me initially but they changed that to $ 1,500 about 2 yrs back .

I do have to pay for a cheque book though if I need more cheques.