HSBC & Bank of the West

I closed two bank account this year.

HSBC, there's time when I walked in this bank, the bank was pretty much empty and half the office lights were not even on, weird, so, I said to myself, it's time to close my account with this bank.

When I went to the teller, told her that I want to close my account and she told me, oh! No! I cannot and you just write the exact check amount to transfer your money, when we see your balance is zero we then will close your account, puzzled.

For Bank of the West, it's a long story, ok, long story short; I had a cd account with them, each term I just let it renew automatically. One day a letter from bank said that because this account is inactive for some time, so they need me to return the mail to reactivate my account, that's totally fine, because that's the rule or the law or whatever. 

But, I forgot to return the mail and past the deadline for couple of days, and seriously I was reminded by my horrible dream about to lose something important, so I rushed to the bank and talked to the customer service representative, he then checked my account, and told me that my account were being renewed. Still, I felt safer to mail back the letter to the bank to ensure my money will be still mine.

I meant that I really appreciated that my money are safe, though it's not a big amount but I earned it fair and square.

So I had my cd stay for another term, 6 months, according to this representative, if I close then, it’ll have a big penalty, which is not quite true and I decided to close this account after for sure.

I then went to the bank on the mature date, and the customer service representative told me the earliest date to terminate it is tomorrow, I completely understand, but then she told my you should go to branch that you open this account and said that you can see that we are lack of workers here, there are couple of workers there but they had zero customer besides me, I wonder why?

Nobody wants to see their money disappear. While the money still technically belongs to the customer, it becomes a hassle to get the money back from the state (where inactive account balances are sent to). And this bank is not even bother to send the letter again or email or text or call the customer, what if i didn't receive the letter.