Doing business with banks in Rolla MO and what you can expect from Mid America Bank and the Citizens Bank of Newburg as I have experienced.
There are two types of businesses. One is known as merchandising business offering products to public like Wal-Mart and the other is a service business offering services to the public such as construction and banks. With the recent bailout by the Obama administration of car companies and big banks we have come to realize that whether it's big business or small business the public, the taxpayer, and the consumer must be careful and conscious when dealing with any businesses. Wal-Mart has always held their customers in high status and customer service.
Whether doing business on the Internet or in your local town try to review the business first. An example of that is that I live in a smaller town in the state of Missouri with a population of about 17,000. You still find unscrupulous business tactics employed by a few, very few people and some businesses who do not practice public relations and give to customer concern. This may be a little town with well over 12 banks throughout the town, but each bank is different. Some of them are branches from larger banking industries. But most of them are small community banks who take great interest in their customers accounts status with them.
My experience with one of those banks was with the Citizens Bank of Newburg who has been doing business in the area for many years. About three years ago I went to the bank to borrow construction money to build a second two-car garage on my property as I have 4 cars and a couple of classic cars. The loan officer Joe Shelton came out to the property and appraised it for $95,000 as an in-house appraisal. In order for me to borrow $90,000 to do the construction loan and a refinance they said they required the titles to three of my automobiles as additional collateral. We were told that once the construction of the garage was completed that we can stop back by the bank and get our titles and possibly get a lower interest rate. Sounded reasonable!
It took us about two months to construct the garage that we wanted and have it finished before returning to the bank to get our titles. When we arrived at the bank I spoke with Mr. Joe Shelton who originally made the loan to us. He seemed to be giving us a cold shoulder and wasn't very cooperative or friendly, but he finally wrote down on the calendar a date of about a week when he would come back out and inspect the garage. We waited for two weeks and he never showed up. My wife and I decided to let it drop for a while. In fact we didn't go back to the bank for about nine months. We had a three-year or adjustable note with an early penalty of $2000 if we paid off the loan within the first two years. read the double fine print.
When we did return to the bank we found that Mr. Joe Shelton had been fired and another loan officer by the name of Tom had taken over the account. When we explained that we came in for our titles and that the garage had been completed and that we wanted our titles back he stated there was no mention of it on the paperwork. Needless to say it developed into a highly irritated argument until he left the room to speak to either the vice president or the president of the bank. When he returned he informed us that the only way we could get our titles back to us would be for the bank to send an appraiser out to appraise the property. We would have to pay for the appraiser of $250. We figured with the new garage and the improvements that we had made since the last appraisal four years ago at $104,000 it would easily should show additional equity in the property. However, this appraiser was on the banks payroll as we found out later.
The next time we returned to the bank office after the appraisal had been finalized we found out that the appraisal was only $87,000 and we still owed $85,000. According to this appraisal, the value of our property had decreased. One of the reasons is that appraisals are based upon five other appraisals done within a radius of 25 miles of our house. Three of these appraisals did not even have outbuildings as our property had. One of them was smaller in square footage. All in all it was a sham appraisal allowing the bank to keep the titles and we were out $250 dollars on top of that.
Needless to say that the bank refused to let us have our titles back to the cars as they had originally promised. We left the bank very much upset or was it agitated and drove to another appraisal company known as Stoltz appraisal who is a well-known. They are a trusted appraisal company involved with government affairs in the Rolla area for the last 30 years or more. We had an educated conversation concerning the Newburg bank with them and they enlightened us with problems that they had heard coming out of the Newburg Bank since new management. We hired Stoltz appraisal to come out to our property for a second time since the 4 years before and reappraise it again for another $250. This time it appraised for $114,000 and showed equal properties to our own.
When I slapped that appraisal down on the loan officer's desk, he wasn't very pleased to say the least. I could cared less. He said he would take it before the bank and let me know in a couple of days what he could do. When we returned for the fourth time in an attempt to retrieve our car titles he bluntly let us know that the bank wasn't happy with that appraisal and did not agree with it. Basically what he was saying was that the bank did not want to go to court as I had threatened we would do if they refuse to return my titles. He could still see my bony finger in his face from the last time.
Another bank in town by the name of Mid America Bank located on South bishop treated us totally different. We wanted to pay the Newburg bank off and leave them in the dust. We had never been in the Mid America Bank before and found them very receptive. An enjoyable relationship was built after introductions and short conversations with Mr. Mike Bell the loan officer and vice president of the bank. We explained that we wanted to do some room additions to our home and to pay off the Newburg bank immediately and with our objective to increase the equity in our property.
It didn't take Mid America Bank very long to make all the arrangements and setting us up with a construction loan and offering their advice and recommendations. We moved our account from our other bank (not Newburgh bank) to Mid America Bank immediately. It has been a very pleasant and rewarding bank to do business with. They have several programs that I have not seen at another bank's. One program is that you can pay all your bills online through their account at no extra charge. They offered free checking account and they offered a new program on the MasterCard debit card in which they round off the numbers to the next highest dollar amount and deposit that into your savings account. This can amount significantly, if you use your debit card for gas, food, and other items several times a month. You can be looking at $10 $25 into your savings account. I highly recommend Mid America Bank and their services. Tell them Lanny's Blog sent you.
Since we started the construction of our home we had to hire two different contractors to do the foundation work and to elevate the house before we could begin to build ourselves. We have been much displeased with their work as they are locals out of Salem Missouri and now have encountered a legal problem that you should be aware of. We are in the middle of a dispute with them and have retained an attorney.
If it is not settled properly you can read about it in my next blog on doing business with some people and avoiding some of the pit falls that you may encounter and how to safeguard yourself. Getting quality service contractors is always difficult and making sure you have a proper contract with clear understanding of what you expect is an also an important aspect to receiving professional work.
I must admit that with my years of experience I overlooked an important factor when we retained them to do the professional work that we expected from professional contractors to do. I may have to write about them in my next blog talk.
If you are running a business make sure you send your customers a card, a telephone call or pick up the cigarette butts before you complete everything. Your business will grow and so will your reputation either as a plus or a minus depending on your public relations sincerity.
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