Chase Bank is new to California since they bought WAMU (Washington Mutual). The old WAMU banks in CA have been converted to Chase Banks.

Chase offers a free business checking account for small business owners. Is this account for you? Well that depends. Free means that there is no monthly maintenance charge (no monthly minimum balance to maintain). There is no direct deposit requirement either. Normal bank fees will apply for returned or unpaid checks and overdrafts.

There are definitely a few drawbacks to Chase/WAMU’s free business checking.

1. Online money transfers take FOREVER. Typical online transfers should only take about 1 to 3 days. Chase takes FOUR days to transfer the money AND that does NOT mean that your money will be available in 4 days. They might decide to put an additional hold on your funds if they believe the amount is too large. This means you might not have money available for over nine days. RIDICULOUS.
2. Customer Service – two comments here.
   Phone customer service: POOR – Customer service representatives are not very helpful and don’t seem to make an effort.
   Branch customer service: EXCELLENT – Since online transfers were disastrous and telephone customer service was horrible we decided to try out the branch (King Street in San Francisco) to see if things would be any different. The banker notified us that there would be a hold on a small deposit because of the amount which was understandable. After some quick research it was determined that the hold would only last 2 days. The staff was friendly and helpful.

The checking account is “free” but if you bounce a check because the bank took too long to transfer funds or because of a hold that is put on after a balance transfer then you will be charged the stated fees. Then it goes back to dealing with customer service…

Bank Reviews