We secured a dealer financed 20 year loan in 2003 and made the decision to sell our boat and improve our personal expense line. We knew that the economic environment would make this difficult and without some additional out of pocket monies since most likely our offers would put us upside down on the deal.

We did find a buyer and secured funds from another bank since First Merit told us they couldn't help until we had the first loan satisfied plus they wanted significant collateral. I should mention that my wife and I have credit scores near 800 and never were late or missed a payment in 10 years but somehow First Merit wasn't able to help.

Our local bank stepped in and provided an unsecurred line of credit beyond our need and made the sale offer work. When requesting a payoff balance First Merit couldn't get it correct and provide 3 different payoffs and even suggested we had missed a payment which they soon correted as a error in looking at the account.

When we received our payoff an 1% early payment fee was added $890.00 and we were told it was on the contract we signed. The contract did say an early payoff "may or may not" be assesed this fee--but no one would explain how or what triggers the may or may not. On the back of the contract the possible "may or may not" statement appeared again with the terms OF 1% of the payoff balance or $50.00 whichever greater.

We objected and sent a letter to the bank that we did not agree but would not hold up or loose the sale opportunity while we disputed the early payment fee. Now that the sale is closed First Merit tells us there is nothing they can do since the loan is paid in full. First Merit again refuses to share how may or may not applies within their contract.

So with over 12 calls and being routed to 7 representatives including surpervisors there isn't a person at First Merit that ever anwered the hard questions--Why & How are these fees determined????

First Merit is last on our list!!!!!

My husband used first merit for an installment loan a few years ago. Years after the beginning of the installment loan my husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor, fell into a coma and was left a quadriplegic who was unable to speak. For months i tried to get first merit to at least give me an address to send his monthly payments to, but because i was not on the account, they would not even tell me what his payment amount was... Even with medical reports, doctors and nurses to speak for the situation at hand. Because of the delay endless late fees, penalties and inevitably a smack to my husbands credit score ensued. Prior to my husbands trauma, he had never been delinquent in any way in paying his obligation to first merit. After speaking with melinda (or some "supervisor" with a name similar to) she showed no amount of compassion at all, stating that she sees in her notes my attempts to call but it's not first merits fault that my husband had health issues. It was rude, disrespectful and plain inhuman how she treated our situation. So much to the point that i paid off the ~$35,000 loan the next day and vowed to never do business with them again. I will speak to anyone who will listen about my experience because it was incredibly hurtful to be treated with such disregard. If you have any other options, use them before you enter a relationship with first merit. They should be ashamed.

I have been banking with firstmerit for over a decade. I have never had many problems with their checking banking, and for the most part have been pleased. However I have gone through their mortgage dept 2 times now. the first time was was my first home i bought ,and was a pain in the rear. every time you turn around they need to have you do something, instead of telling you what you need all ahead of time or all at once. I ended up making the mistake in going through them with my second house because i bank there. It was just as bad probably worse this time. Iv been getting documents faxing them forms for about 3 months now. A week goes by i am the one who has to try and contact them to see what the status is, and everytime i do they ask for another document or something else which could have been asked for at the beginning of the process or even as soon as they knew it was needed. Regardless i am shutting down this loan and closing my banking accounts with firstmerit for good. They are unqualified and incompetant and very unwilling to go out of their way for valued customers. I would not recommend them to anyone

Bank employees are very rude, and do not provide quick service. Waiting in the drive through line, you can see them talking to each other in the window, but taking their sweet time helping customers. If you prefer to do online banking or online bill pay, watch out, they routinely made errors on payment dates that had set up on a standing basis, and despite admitting the error would not compensate me for the late fees generated as a result.

Also, they offer banking rewards for having direct deposit and making purchases with a debit card, but never actually pay the rewards - very shady. It seems like they lure people in with good offers up front, and very quickly lower the interest rates/rewards hoping that you'll be too busy to switch banks. Save yourself the time and hassel up front and don't bank with First Merit!!

My car loan was only 22 days past due and they sent two thugs to repo my car. Their repo thugs jumped into my car terrifying my children who were in the car at the time. I called first merit and they were rude and treated me like dirt.

The kicker is have been a customer for 4 years never missing a payment. I only have 12 payments left on my loan and they chose to repo my car. The only way I could get the car back was to pay it off.

I will never do business with first merit again. This is how they treat good paying customers.

they charge me a $10 service fee by accident for about 16 months but will only refund 4 months back even though it's a bank error. Branch manager says it's bank policy....very unfriendly ...

My bad experience with this bank started with an overdraft on two uses with my debit card on the same day. By the end of that day my account was still in the positive. The next day I again used my debit card and made a withdraw. I was sure funds were deposited the night before. Later that morning I discovered the error and understand I owe the bank the amount I had withdrawn and a $35.00 overdraft fee. It wasnt til a few days later they told me I was also charged $70.00 for the two uses on my debit card the day before.

All of this caused a snowball effect considering I had used my debit card three of more times believing I had that $70.00 in my account.

My mother has an account in the same bank. My name is on her account for emergency use only. Today she went to take care of some transactions with her account and the bank refused to let her have any of her money until she paid a $1.78 to my account. She would not agree to it until she found out she could not have her money or do any transactions with her account. She finally agreed to pay the $1.78. The bank teller told my mother she would be right back. After a couple of minutes the woman returned saying my mother would have to put over $100.00 in to my account. Considering my mother has automatic bill payments expected to go through soon she agreed to pay the amount over $100.00.

They not only stole money out of my account, they then held my mothers account hostage. My mother and I are both done with this bank. It is sad considering I have been with this bank for about 8 years and my mother has been with them for about 5 years.

Our account has been compromised. We have not receive help from this bank at all. After they cancelled our debit cards, more transactions were deducted. Enough is enough. I'm tired of being fed lies and crap to shut me up. The Wellington, OH branch manager is new and has NO CLUE what he is doing. THis has been going on now for 2 WEEKS.

I'm not going to knock overdrafts like most reviews did.... If you overdraw or ASSUME a deposit has cleared before you write checks/use debit cards IT'S YOUR FAULT!!

My issues are security-related and record-keeping related along with simply having individuals not doing their jobs.

I'll list 4 of many issues that have led us to move all (business, investment, and personal accounts) to Fifth Third Bank.

1. My wife and I were in Pa. and wanted to withdraw several thousand from one of our savings accounts . We simply walked into a branch and I gave the teller our acct # (from memory) and then realized I had given her a checking acct. I corrected the mistake (again from memory) and she began to count out the $. She asked me to sign the withdrawal slip and we walked out with the cash. NEVER WERE WE ASKED FOR I.D.!!!!! Upon reporting this it seemed to be taken quite lightly by the bank!

2. A scanned image of a BUSINESS deposit ticket online was found to have MY COMPLETE PERSONAL SSN hand written on it by a teller. It took several weeks and dozens of phone calls to various departments to get the image removed. My concerns were taken as a joke by most of the people. Why a teller was accessing my personal info for a business deposit NEVER HAS BEEN ANSWERED.

3. A safe-deposit box linked to an account from my wife's previous marriage (an account that her ex kept after her name was removed per the divorce decree) somehow was forgotten for YEARS (8+?). My wife received notice that SHE is responsible for years of rent along with a substantial charge for "drilling the lock" since she has no key!! When asking the branch mgr why so long before notification and why it was HER responsibility the mgr HUNG UP ON HER!!!

4. Direct contact with a mgr to have a Merchant account (CC machine) closed. This included a letter to the fact and the response was "It will be taken care of immediately" A month later Merchant Svcs is still unaware of the closure and trying to take fees!

BEWARE

First of all, I don't bank at First Merit. However, I received a mysterious call saying I had an account and that it was locked asking me to reactivate it. I wasn't sure if it was an attempted phishing scam or someone had used my social security number to open an account. I called them twice asking them to check for me, I spoke with two different ladies who were unfriendly, unhelpful, and not even willing to look it up. I would never consider banking here. Note: I only have an experience with customer service below.